


A Discordant Note

by Danse-or-Farkas (Markond)



Category: Red Embrace (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markond/pseuds/Danse-or-Farkas
Summary: As a young son of Golgotha born to an ancient Ash does not know just how deeply his insight dips into the dark below, the sound he hears from the other side, and with it how much ruin he can bring to the carefully laid plans fate has made for the three warring Houses and the Vandal Prince.
Relationships: Ash/Randal, Golgotha MC/Randal
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. The First Meeting

The sound had been a constant thing, a faint melodic whine like the strings of a violin being ever so gently caressed. He had first thought it some strange side effect of being turned, his new hearing sharp enough to catch the rush of blood, sloshing of fluid in his inner ear, or some other of the many biological functions that he had yet to fully realise had ceased.

It was almost a comforting thing, only noticeable when he focused on it, but never quite gone no matter how he turned his head or tried to shake it free.

He was still so fresh his blood had a faint trace of its living warmth, the chill night air determined to sap it away. It was the last of the natural heat he would ever have. He had already replaced a little of it, stolen it in an alleyway, the easiest thing he had ever done.

With what he hoped was an aura of confidence he approached the meeting place of the Mavvar and the Golgotha with a blade tucked against his back that might get him torn to shreds by a beast of a vampire known for his brutality.

He had heard them whispering in the lobby as he passed, or perhaps it wasn’t quite whispering he had heard, but they were expecting him to return in a handful of plastic bags and perhaps a tin can for the wet bits. They thought him already lost, though strangely the Red Queen had not thought so low of him. That much he could see reflected in the glint of her glasses.

The Iscari opinion of the rebel prince was odd; they thought him a brute, an animal, lesser than them by virtue of being reborn to a different bloodline, but for all their claims of his inferiority they also could do little to get rid of him. Instead they sent freshly dead agents to disrupt his plans.

The guard on the door moved to stop him and reality seemed to fade into the background.

“ _The dark father is coming_.” He was supposed to say those words. They pulled from somewhere else, tugging at the back of his mind and demanding the out they wished. He didn’t say them.

The sound twisted a little, screeching in complaint like the first drag of the bow across string in the hands of a true novice.

“ _I need to talk to Randal. Its important_.” Those were better words. Wrong words. He didn’t know the name yet.

“ _I can’t just let you in_.” Jack squared his shoulders to try looking big, in Ash’s eyes only puffing out his feathers like a pigeon.

“ _I bring an offering from the Dark Father, a token of cooperation_.”

“ _The Dark Father, you mean the Gol leader?_ ” Jack recoiled, weight leaning from his front foot to his back, from fight to flight.

Ash nodded, face splitting in a wide grin.

“ _Fuck this, I’m out. Creepy fuckers the lot of you_.”

“ _Love you too Jack._ ” Ash called out after him as he fled, dimly aware that he didn't know his name yet either. They were not going to be introduced properly for another few days.

The wrongness finally breached its barriers. The bubble popped, the strings returned to their gentle humming.

Ash let the jumble of images fade from memory too fast, too new to know just how to grasp on to them and peel back their skin to find the wisdom below. Instead he contemplated just how they were going to deal with the guard.

Of the vision all that remained was the Dark Fathers name being a feared thing, like a barbed hook snaring his mind.

They watched him approach from under the anonymity of their deep hood, Ash almost feeling the textured grip of a knife ghosting against his palm as the guard reached into a jacket pocket. He put on his most disarming smile in response.

“I can’t let you in.” Jack was palming his own knife, the image of him diving forward and stabbing pooling in the future like the winding of a pocketwatch spring or the coiling of a viper.

“Oh you can. The Dark Father is coming.” There was a flicker of disapproval that felt like yellow eyes glaring out from the night, like he should not have invoked his authority without due permission.

“You mean the Gol leader?” Jack took a half step back. “You’re a Gol?”

Ash let his grin go too wide, giving a slow nod.

“I’m out. Fuck this.” Jack spun on their heel and almost sprinted away, throwing their hands up in defeat.

With a hint of satisfaction he found the path open to a place where the wild burned like fire and the strange twinkled like stars. At the heart of it all, the calm eye of the storm, stood the Vandal Prince with his eyes amber bright and a crown above his head.

Ash in that moment could not place the feeling. He had expected a tyrant with cold eyes and a blood red star upon their heart. Instead he was a radiant thing, fierce and warm, wreathed in the adoration of his House and in turn his love for them flowed like honeyed wine and morning light through stained glass.

Ash found themselves transfixed, hearing a shout of challenge terribly close to his ears. He would have been happy to stare into the flames forever.

Instead they let their newfound power carry them forward and left those unknowns by the wayside. He only realised it was his own voice he had heard when he had already pushed through the crowd.

With the knife raised high he offered it up as he had been ordered, not once able to tear himself away from those eyes even as the Golgotha insight screamed danger in a myriad of voices that each echoed and chimed from nearby.

“I bring a sceptre for the Vandal prince.” He had meant to ask if it was his knife and found the words coming out considerably wrong. The presence of others of his blood seemed to be blurring his thoughts and pushing his sight down below the surface of the world to whatever under place they drew their visions from.

“This is what we get for letting the crazies in too close.” Randal muttered to himself, finally looking at it and recognising the carved wood of the handle, well worn smooth and clearly an object much cared for.

His eyes narrowed, teeth bared as he took it and held it up to the buzzing tube lights to be sure. In that moment where their hands touched Ash felt a shock, like a live wire earthing through them, and with it a flash of someone else's pain as they lay clutching their neck in an alleyway looking up at burning bright eyes and a bloodstained smile.

“Where did you get this.” Randals tone resonated in his skull, amber bright light flaring behind his eyes.

“From a brother.” The warnings paused as if to draw breath as the Golgotha knew as one that the Iscari had outplayed them.

Randal drew in a deep breath as if to calm and centre himself, weighing options before irritation won out.

“Meetings cancelled, you can all fuck off.” With a growl he made a broad motion, arms raised as if declaring he was done with them all. He put a hand on Ashs shoulder and held as if to say ‘Not you. You stay.’

The Golgotha emissary stepped forth with a theatrical flourish, thought to say something and decided else wise. With a tilt of his head he instead listened through the newcomer. He could hear it too now, musical and light, and most certainly a sound coming from the other side. Ash, named for the tree that grew and the fire that devastated, would most certainly need to be watched.

Zhang let a sigh free, swept away by the Mavvar but offering no resistance. There would be no bloodshed, that much of their arrangement the Mavvar would honour. He would see his House safe above all things, even if it meant the heartache of seeing the Dark Father disappointed.

The Golgotha as one pooled their power, the impulse passing from mind to mind like dewdrops sliding down spider webs. The Mavvar found themselves stumbling over empty air and shepherding only themselves as the grinning vampires faded like smoke the moment they touched the dark. Ash felt the tug of compulsion in his blood, a distant thing that grew further with each passing second, trying to draw on a power he had no knowledge of yet.

Randal watched as Ashs edges shimmered for a short moment, resisting the push as his eyes tried to slide over him. That particular Golgotha power was as much illusion as it was something considerably more sinister.

Their presence faded, Randal casting a glance in the direction they had been and casting out his senses to be certain. He felt at least a little more comfortable when there was no trace of them on the stale breeze.

After several more seconds he finally looked at Ash, taking him in and trying to judge just how aware he was of what he had done.

“You’ve got some fucking balls pulling a stunt like that.” He half sighed half laughed, seeming to be oddly impressed even through the bone deep irritation. “So the Queen Bitch sent you to turn us against the Gols?”

Randal leaned against the hood of a suspiciously well maintained Cadillac, much out of place amongst the sea of rust and dust, folding his arms over his chest and giving the well practiced appearance of being relaxed.

“She did, lamb to the lions.” Ash tried to lie and failed, finding it strangely hard to bring himself to do so with Randal staring with such unblinking intensity. It took an effort of will to even bring himself to speak, shrugging off the weight pushing down on him with a visible shiver. Randals expression shifted to first visibly confused at the reaction, then finally a little less guarded.

“Gols.” He rolled his eyes. “Your House is a pain in my ass. Probably best we didn't cut a deal, end up with a knife in our back sooner or later. No offence, kid, but your House is shit.”

“None taken.” There was a titter of offense from somewhere not quite near, not his in the slightest. It felt like a fedora, a disarming smile and well tailored suit.

“I know it doesn't mean much, but I’m really sorry for what's happened to you. Doesn’t take a genius to see that this was supposed to be a suicide mission. You’re fresh, and that makes you disposable to Saorise.” Righteous fury circled him like a golden halo of flame, not directed at Ash but at the Iscari for sending them. “Got a name at least?”

“Ash.”

“Well Ash, way to make a fucking entrance.” With another careful sigh he let the tension drop, a grin taking its place. “I’m Randal. And if you’d been any of her other flying monkeys I’d be tearing your arms off and beating you to death with the fun end right now. But since you’re new and don’t know any better I’ll let you off.”

“I appreciate that. I like having arms.” Ash had expected the monster, caught completely off guard by the man. He had expected a pale, dead thing, vicious and cold, dark haired and dark eyed. Instead he was still as sun kissed as he had likely been in life, sunbleached hair and golden eyes, with a strange magnetism that made Ash instantly understand just how the Mavvar had chosen him.

He chose to ignore the threat to bludgeon him to death with his own limbs that he was mostly certain was meant as a joke. Mostly.

“The Iscari are on high alert right now, and they’ve got a hell of a lot of power so if she direly wanted you dead you would be.” Randal stretched, scratching the back of his head. “You’re still new, so they haven't managed to fill your head with bullshit yet. The truth is we aren’t rebelling for shits and giggles, we’re doing it because the Iscari only care for their fucking rules and how to use them to keep the other Houses down in the dirt. Saorise is a delusional tyrant, she thinks she’s the voice of every bloodsucker in town when really its just the pretty ones she cares about.”

“She suggested that you’d be better off as her ally than with the Golgotha. She wants an alliance.” Ash knew before he had even said it that it was a pointless errand he had been sent on. Saorise had no intention of forming an alliance.

Randal snorted a laugh, deep and bitter and surprisingly pleasant to hear.

“That's the dumbest thing I’ve heard all night, and I just read an ad in a magazine trying to tell me my dick wasn’t big enough.” Randal watched as his suspicions were confirmed when Ash shot a look downward covertly. There was a way Ash carried themselves that seemed just a little too much for anybody that knew to look, not an obvious thing, but most certainly not straight either. “Even if I did want an alliance, which I really fucking don’t, I’m not the one she has to convince. I’m just the voice of the rebellion, but she doesn't get that. She can’t wrap her head around the idea that we don’t have a leader she can bribe, or coax, or threaten.”

“You really seemed like a leader back there. You just...” Ash imitated the shrugging arm wave that had signalled the Mavvar to action. “...and they jumped right to it.”

“Don’t mistake respect for leadership. They listen to me but I don’t order them around or anything. I just do the negotiations when we need to. Its better than fifty guys all yelling at once, and lets be honest I prefer negotiating these knuckles into those smug Iscari fuckers faces.” That toothy snarl returned briefly, handsome and terrifying, Randal running his tongue over a too sharp fang before returning his attention to Ash. “I might be wasting my words with this but don’t let them grind you down, and don’t believe their lies. They aren’t all about beauty and peace, they’re a bunch of self centered snakes that’ll stab you in the back the moment it profits them.”

“I’ll try.”

“I feel bad saying this, especially to a baby Gol, but there's nothing I can really do to help you. In better times I’d give you the recruiting speech and let you decide where you stand, but Saorise will go down the warpath if I even think of trying to poach one of her new toys, so you’re basically stuck under her heel until this is all over. Just try not to let those new powers get the best of you, most Gols don’t last a week without completely losing it and throwing themselves at the next dawn. It’d be a shame to see you snuffed out so fast.” Randal put his hand on Ashs shoulder, softly this time, his skin cold but his intentions warm. “Look after yourself kid.” He let his hand fall.

“I think I can.” It was a lie, but one Ash was becoming more and more certain he would have to keep telling himself.

“Its been fun, but I’ve got to go stop my guys from running down your House brothers. We’ve got a place down by the beach, if you ever feel like seeing what the winning side is like drop in on us.” Randal gave a surprisingly flirty wink before running off to see what hell his pack had managed to cause in his brief absence.

“Thanks Vandal!” Ash called to him.

“Its Randal, fucking Gols.” Echoed back, exasperated but with a smile so wide that it could be heard.

Ash just laughed, and that ever present noise in the back of his head grew delicately sweet and musical.


	2. The Beach

All he had to do was knock. He could feel the Mavvar on the other side, their warmth inviting and strange and right, the desire there but the will to act fighting his command. Every time he raised his hand to the well worn wood and peeling paint it felt like a vast gulf opened, a sense of finality in the choice that looked to his visions like a time bleached bar and a velvet clad shop. He could see the possibilities spiralling out from such a small choice, and the certainty that he was killing more of those vast possibilities with that single action than would remain afterwards.

He finally pushed through it with gritted teeth, that ever present sound going from the soft purr of an idling engine to a trill of curiosity. The moment he actually knocked all resistance vanished, leaving barely even an impression that it had ever been there. With a slightly confused blink it slipped from his mind, almost held but not quite.

There was a sound from within, like somebody much too large for a tiny sofa scrambling up to answer the door.

The door opened, and there stood Randal with a look half way between urgency and confusion at Ashs presence.

Randal almost recoiled, fighting the urge and winning. To his eyes Ash looked awfully Iscari.

The night they had met he had been less formally dressed, likely still in the clothes they’d been turned in. Now it was plain as night Saorise had had her tailors all over him. Like locusts they had swarmed and stripped all that was good and left only dead earth behind. Ash was a fancy haircut, a salon expensive bleach job, and a scarf away from being the polaroid perfect image of the Iscari. There was none of the Golgotha spirit outwardly showing, pushed down by what was likely fall ‘96 catwalk fresh.

“Ash.” Randal pushed past his reservations with a guarded smile. Their presence was either a good omen that they had started to throw off Iscari control, or a worse omen that he had embraced it entirely as a potential spy. “Can’t say I’m not glad you're here, just wasn't expecting it.”

“I like bad boys, you’re a Vandal, you do the math.” That had not been what he meant to say, his mouth deciding ‘I like catching people by surprise’ needed some last minute edits.

“Fucking Gols.” Randal did a half sigh half laugh. “I figure you’re here for something?”

“I just wanted to be.” It was not easy to explain that Randal wore a crown and shone with a dazzling light that had completely dominated his attention, like his maker had been more moth than bat.

“Alright, come on inside.” Randal just shrugged, burying a handful of doubts. “You might be a spy, but fuck it, the bitch knows all my dirty little secrets already. Except the fun ones, you’d have to ask Markus about those.” He let an ever so slightly flirty smirk rise, then smiled broadly at the nervous swallow Ash did at the implications.

With a broad movement he swept Ash forward across the threshold, almost sending them stumbling into a teeming nest of vampires.

The buzz of talk and laughter stilled abruptly, picking up to a dull murmur as his presence rippled outward like a pebble upon a still pond.

“Hello.” He waved slightly, feeling the crushing weight of their stares until as one they flickered toward Randal as if for direction.

“Will you all chill the fuck out?” Randals presence felt prickly, like a wolf with its hackles raised. “He’s a newbie, wrong place at the wrong time. Have some fucking empathy.”

The tension popped like a soap scum bubble, the Mavvar as one relaxing somewhat.

“Sorry.” Someone at the back of the room voiced the feeling, all present bowing their heads sheepishly as if scolded like children. Randal just rolled his eyes and muttered something like an older brother that had long gotten tired of dealing with them all.

“Not me you should be apologising to.” Randal just sighed, dropping onto the threadbare couch in a well worn spot that fit him perfectly, gesturing toward Ash. “Sit down, you’re making the place look messy. Messier. Take a damn seat kid.”

Ash dropped down onto an armchair most definitely not from the same set as the other furniture. Nothing matched in a way that seemed right, the only common thread between anything was that there was none.

Randal grew momentarily contemplative as if thinking the best way to put himself forward.

“Look, everyone is on edge because of all the war shit going on. And you show up here looking like you’ve got a set of freshly manicured talons already dug into you really doesn't help.”

“I get it.” Ash could feel Saorise grip on him, the sensation less than that of a tyrant and more of a mother tired of seeing her children stray.

“Good, just don’t take it too personally. Things are only like this for now.” He seemed genuinely hopeful for the briefest flicker of a moment before returning to himself. “Let me get the others, maybe if they actually talk to you they’ll mellow out a bit.”

“Oh no, a meet and greet. Saorise didn't get my business cards printed off yet.”

Randal waved toward one of the groups milling around together, gesturing them to come over. They swept across the room, a few swiping up chairs to bring on the way as the rest raced for the remaining spaces on the sofa. The first to arrive raised his arm triumphant only to be thrown from his spot by someone diving in behind him with a howl of a laugh.

Ash recognised them as the guard from the parking garage as they bowled past him and hit the wall, grumbling as they stood up and were forced to take a faded pink deckchair as the last remaining spot.

There was a look shared between Randal and Ash, ‘ _these are my idiots_ ’ communicated entirely through raised eyebrows and a soft shake of his head.

Almost as one they chorused their hellos. One of them just gave Ash an unimpressed look, perched on the arm of the sofa like a vulture deciding if the eyeballs were ripe enough to be worth gliding down for.

Randal coughed loudly, giving her a very sharp look. She matched it back.

“Cut the crap and show him that winning smile of yours.”

With a snort of indignation and a shake of her head that sent a beautiful wave through the thick curls of her hair she put on a too insincere smile.

“I’m Marla. I fix cars and kick ass.” She sounded nothing but bored, despite having being eager to meet the new recruit only moments before.

“If the death chariot needs a tune I know who to call.”

“Death chariot?” There was a moment of confused, dipped eyebrows as she tilted her head, eyes going wide as she saw it. “Fucking Gols.” She said with a light laugh, the tension draining when she realised Ash wasn’t an Iscari, at least not by blood.

“He might actually have a chariot.” Randal added conversationally. “There was that one Gol who managed to blood bond an ostrich because he thought he could ride it.”

“Don’t remind me.” Marla rolled her eyes, leaning ever so slightly against the guy at her side until their shoulders touched.

“Next is Ziggy, he’s Marla’s nicer half and our in house gunsmith.” Ziggy gave a lacklustre wave as Marla raised a middle finger toward Randal.

There was a tremble as his image distorted, pale makeup and a red streak of lighting over one eye as he was wreathed in stardust.

“Do you too like the spiders from Mars?” Ash asked as the vision evaporated to a tinkling of something very 80’s sounding.

Ziggy paused, almost smiling before nodding slowly.

“And this fine lady is Joaquina, straight from the old west.” Randal pointed to the old lady occupying what had briefly been Jacks spot. Her face was well worn from a lifetime of sunlight, smiles and frowns.

“Howdy.” She made a motion as if tipping a cowboy hat.

“She's everyone's grandma around here, she just ain't the baking cookies type.”

“But I can nail a bastard through the forehead at a half mile with naught but a good rifle. Keep that in mind if you ever pull that brand of bullshit from the Gol meetup again.” Despite being a threat there was nothing but warmth and teasing to her tone. “It was awful funny though, I’ll give you that.”

“Ease off the threats grandma. He won’t do it again.”

“I make no promises.” Ash added impetuously, a little more daring now that the ice had finally broken.

“And I’ll box your ears for a week without a tea break you little yahoo.” She raised her fists in a pugilists stance, her smile growing fonder by the moment.

Randal just rolled his eyes again.

“And this scaredy cat I think you’ve already met.”

“Jack.” Ash could feel his name as bright and clearly as he could see the blood red rose worn in his lapel, at least until he blinked and it was never there and the leather jacket had never even had lapel holes.

He flinched upon meeting Ash’ eyes, retreating further into his hood.

“Hi.” he didn't seem all that happy to be there now that he knew who he was meeting.

“He’s new too, barely a year cold.” Randal elaborated when Jack was clearly not being forthcoming.

“I figured all that stuff you were saying was just bullshit, you know?” Jack crossed his arms, almost sulking.

Ash leaned forward with a chilling look, licking their lip theatrically.

“Have some respect for the Dark Father.”

A shudder ran through Jack, as well as a sharp spike of something unpleasant from Randal that only Ash sensed.

“And that’s everyone you need to know for now.” Randal made a dismissing wave to the assembled Mavvar as he stood up, stretching his shoulders. “Go back to your gossiping, I’ve got stuff to talk to the newbie about.”

“Not sticking about?”

“I’ll be a few minutes, just walking Ash to the door. You’ll survive. Probably.”

“Nice meeting you all.” Ash found themselves actually smiling, and finding it mirrored back it him.

“Get back home safe. And if any of those drunkards out there give you hassle just wave and I’ll pick ‘em off from the window.” Joaquina winked and mimed shooting her rifle.

“Or you could not do that.” Randal steered Ash toward the door with both hands the moment he stood up, Joaquina miming more shots as he was ushered away.

The warmth that had washed over Ash seemed to shift, caught in Randals gravity. The Mavvar had fire in their blood, and somehow he had managed to become a focal point for it. It felt nice just to bask in that orbit too, to be close to him.

Once they were outside Randal closed the door behind them and sat down on the porch step, patting the spot next to him.

Ash sat down, finding that with such a narrow step and Randal being such a towering presence that they were practically thigh to thigh.

“Hope that wasn’t all too much for you. They can be a lot to deal with.” Randal was staring up at the bright moon, fixated. “At least you broke the ice. With a fucking hammer.”

“I think it went well, especially because you were there.” The move was bold, putting his hand on his arm and getting a delightful tingling shock as the tattoo imparted the memory of its creation. Randal looked back down at the less than casual touch, but made no move to shrug it off.

“That means a lot to me, knowing I did a good job. I know it isn't easy doing this whole undead thing alone. But that's why we’re all here. We all had different lives, different stories but now we all tough it out together.”

“I can see that. I can feel it.” There was joy and laughter carrying from the house in palpable waves that mirrored the swell and flow of the ocean. Ash closed his eyes and sampled from both sides, the belonging and the serenity mixing into something almost melancholic.

“Fucking Gols.” Randal shook his head, his smile and warmth fading to something considerably more defensive. “I can see it clearly when something is playing on someone's mind. If you weren’t sent by Saorise then what are you really here for?”

“She told me that since my maker is gone I should find someone to show me how to be a vampire if I didn't want to end up dead. Deader? Whatever.” Ash watched Randals expression grow darker at the mention of Saorise. “I figured you were my best hope.”

“So the queen bitch told you to find someone trustworthy to show you the ropes? And you chose me? Her mortal enemy?” Randal put his head in his hands and just laughed. “Mortal enemy? Immortal enemy? Whatever.”

“So is that a no?” Ash seemed timidly hopeful.

“If you weren't already a Gol I’d say you were fucked in the head for making that choice.” There was still the last shock of laughter to his words, his amber eyes almost luminescent with amusement. “I usually wouldn't pass up the chance to spite the bitch, but I’m not ‘wise old mentor’ material. Maybe ‘wise old stoner’ at a stretch.”

“If you can’t do it I understand. I’ll find someone else. Saorise did already make a suggestion.”

“I didn't say I wouldn't do it.” Randal seemed contemplative for a moment. “And I can guess who she suggested, and trust me they would not steer you right. Heath is a one way ticket to hating being a vampire.”

“He seemed kinda charming.”

“All Iscari do, makes them feel better about being hollow inside.” Randal ran his hand through his hair, brushing it back behind his ear. “Look, I’m not some vampire wise man that can show you the path to bloodsuckers enlightenment. You need to figure out what you want, and take it.”

“I want to be warm again.” Ash spoke it almost in a daze, the words coming more from that beautiful music he could hear than his own choices. “I want to be with people again.”

“I can understand that.” Randal leaned over until they bumped shoulders, a small gesture but much appreciated. “Don’t think of it as being reborn, think of it like moving to a new town. Your boss is a bitch, the food is different than you’re used too, and the people are paranoid but if you’re nice and do well by them then they’ll open up to you.”

“Thanks.”

“Look, you seem like a nice guy and I can’t do much but I can try to make it at least bearable. Saorise isn't going to just let you go so you really need to stay put. If you can fly below her notice and throw us any information that might save a few lives I’ll teach you just how me and my group manage to keep our spirits up. I just hope its enough to help you.”

“Vandal, you’ve got yourself a deal.” Ash wore a too wide smile, awkwardly offering a hand to shake and having it lightly batted away.

“Its Randal.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Fucking Gols. At least you’re growing on me.” He leaned back, rocking himself forward and up onto his feet in a single smooth motion.

He offered a hand to help, Ash already hauling himself upright.

“Growing on you like that rash you really don’t want to take to the doctors?” Ash brushed sand from themselves, an entirely futile task on the beach.

“Something like that.” Randal just nodded.

“There’s a lotion for that.”

“I need to say something important.” He grew silent again, lost in the choice of how to say it, staring at the bandage on the palm of his hand. “Never let anybody make you think that you’re less than they are. Not for power, not for age, not for seniority in the fucking Iscari pyramid scheme. Never let yourself be a slave.”

“I promise I won’t bend knee to anyone.”

“Even me?” The crown appeared again, and with it the desire to kneel.

“Even you.” Ash spoke with more confidence than he felt and for that Randal actually seemed pleased.

“Remember that, hold onto it when Queen Bitch has her boot on your throat.” His serious tone melted away to an airy, conversational one. “I don't mean to be kicking you out, but I’m kicking you out. I’ve got a big meeting to crash pretty soon and I need to be ready for it.”

“I get it.”

“I hope I’m not sending you back sadder than a box of kittens, I know this undead stuff can get pretty heavy.”

“I’m good.”

“Get going kid, and be safe.” Randal pulled Ash in for something half way between a hug and a pat on the back before spinning him around and gently nudging him off the porch onto the sand.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Wait.” Randal pulled a face like he was sucking on a lemon. “If Saorise hasn't got you running her drycleaning to the store or whatever bullshit she's got dreamed up for you to do, do you want to get drinks with me sometime?”

“Are you asking me out?” Ash choked on their words, thankful that they were at the least not capable of turning interesting colours from embarrassment.

“No, I’m asking to get to know you over a glass of O-Negative.” The ‘No’ had come out considerably less certain than Randal had intended. “Midnight, two nights from now, Saturnalia.”

“If I’m not too busy I’m certain I can pencil you in on my schedule.” Ash though he had sounded smooth. He really didn't.

“I’m sure you can.”

Ash said one final goodbye as he walked away, probably swallowed by the sound of the waves.


	3. The Abattoir

His new clothes had been laundered twice, first to get the sand and the smell of ocean air out of them, the second time for sewage and the acid burning of old vampire blood. It had become a blur in his memory; a twisted body, a severed head in a screen, and an oddly poetic threat stuffed into a gaping mouth. The only part that seemed real was Markus, his presence almost too real in the memories, dominating the narrative.

Sunset had barely passed when he was startled awake by a pronounced knocking. He had expected death would take the sluggishness of waking up from him and was thus far sorely disappointed.

The door opened with an electric beeping, the Iscari agent letting themselves in.

Ash sat on the edge of their bed, blinking owlishly.

“Miss Locke requests your presence.” He stressed ‘requests’ in a way that made it clear that it was most certainly not a request. “She is in the executive meeting suite, I believe you know the way.”

The murmuring and watching eyes grew inquisitive when Ash walked through the hotel, their presence and pressure intensifying.

Ash found Saorise less than alone. She was sat with a table full of documents and flanked by a pair of vampires lounging on the couches. It seemed they were in competition who could lounge the hardest, like a pair of preening predatory peacocks, wearing very quickly on the patience of their Regent.

Markus spotted him first, head snapping toward the door with a look at first inquisitive and then quickly understanding. There was a flicker of a laugh, silent and barely there, with a hint of judgement. The sewer had hidden it then, but their was still the faintest trace of salt clinging to him and announcing his choice.

Heath moved with less speed, his own response softer and more measured. His was a fond look and a smile like he had just been handed a heartfelt gift.

Saorise simply raised an eyebrow and beckoned sharply to the remaining space.

“You finally show up. I was almost ready to send another agent to recover you. You have already found your legs from what I’ve been told, wandering far from our safe territory.” There was a subtle stress to the word ‘safe’ that could be either a sincere warning or a dire threat.

“Apologies Miss Locke, but I was doing as you asked.” It felt so insincere, only Randals warning to barely be noticed stilling any hope of more biting response.

Saorise considered it for a moment, the two most likely choices for mentor in the room with her and somewhat accounted for in nights recent.

“Nevermind that, I have a task for you. How do you feel about rubbing shoulders with the Hollywood elite?”

There was a soft trill of confusion from the ever present noise, as if becoming faintly aware that something had gone ever so slightly wrong.

Markus seemed to notice it with a tilt of his head an an ever so slight flicker of a raised eyebrow, but made no comment. Heath just seemed so pleased with himself that Saorise was calling him in to serve the Coven.

Ash was certain that no matter if he agreed or not there was an interesting night laid out for him.

* * *

The Abattoir was a strange place to return to. Ash found himself drawn as if in a dream to the exact spot he had met his maker, leaning against the bar muscle for muscle perfectly as it had been that night.

It was not some Golgotha ancient that found him that time, but Heath gently wandering up to him, fingers toying idly with the edge of his scarf. There was a cigarette held but yet unlit, the edge becoming well worn where he had rolled it back and forth, staring into space waiting for them to appear.

“Hello Ash.” He smiled softly. “I was afraid I’d been forgotten.”

“Been waiting long?” Ash tried to be conversational and light, instead coming across as deeply distracted. He could see the shadow of his maker leading him down the stairs to the basement level, some lingering trace of his presence chilling the air even with the heat and sweat of heaving humanity filling the room.

“A little while. I’ve been watching the people, its fun to imagine their lives. All those ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs’ just passing us by.” He seemed so wistful, almost sad that it was only to be imagined.

“Its only fun when you can switch it off. It gets loud.” Ash already knew too many useless facts about the people around him, unable to match them to faces. He felt an addict trying to chase the darkness away, a favourite flavour of coffee, a lost child pretending their mother wasn't gone forever, the social security number they always forgot, a failed actor who had never lived up to their potential, an artist who's final piece was a burning sculpture on a rooftop, and the shopping list for tomorrow morning before dropping the kids of at school.

With a scrunching of his eyes he pushed back against it, something almost like quiet taking its place.

“Maybe a little gift might ease that burden.” With a flourish Heath presented a silver card marked VIP. “Its not quite a golden ticket, but it’ll get you into the limelight just the same.”

“Didn't Saorise say to avoid the limelight?” Heath was almost wreathed in it, stage lights above casting a spotlight that didn't quite touch him, couldn’t touch him.

“That she did. That's why I’m going in as someone else.” His smile was cheerful but certainly a lie.

“A false moustache tends to draw more attention.”

“A little more in depth than that my dear friend. The Iscari have this power, Glamour, it lets us look like someone else for a little while.” There was a flicker of green light behind his eyes, and with a sweep of his hand through his hair it turned from pale to dark and back again.

“I wouldn’t mind being able to do that.” His response was easy and automatic. Ash had been vain as a human, death had seemingly dulled that particular need until all that was left was the old habits of it.

He had to wonder if he had been born a scion of the Iscari rather than a son of Golgotha would it be different? He still felt like himself, but certain eccentricities had grown and sprouted like yellow flowered weeds amongst dead grass in what was previously a living garden.

“I don't think it can be taught, at least not to another House. Some things are bound in blood. You have your own powers.” Heath gently touched below his chin, raising his head ever so gently so he that Ash could see in the reflection of Heaths eyes that there was a flicker of white light behind his own.

“And nobody to teach me how to use them.” Ash took his hand, a gentle kiss to his knuckle like an old lord greeting a lady. It held no romantic connotations, the action entirely theatrical.

In better circumstances Ash might have been attracted to Heath, to his quiet sadness begging to be healed. The ever present sound rang like a steel bell at that thought, a warning that felt like a gunshot to the chest.

Heath opened his mouth to speak, closing it again with a frown, losing himself in consideration for a short while. Ash felt certain he was choosing how much to reveal, some secret humming like a dial tone just under the surface.

“I’ve always found your House fascinating, and I would be lying if I said I didn't know anybody who could mentor you. But that's something to talk about later, maybe over a glass of something in better surroundings.”

Ash felt the briefest glance of golden yellow eyes on him from somewhere distant, scrutinising and searching.

“I wasn't aware that there was any Golgotha left in the Coven, other than Markus.” Ash has at least suspected that a small few remained with the Coven, catching the occasional loose thread of nearby thoughts carelessly cast along across the bloodline when at the hotel. He could not be certain if they were allies or spies though.

“Markus is a special case, and there is a small few. They tend to keep to themselves.” Heath hid the half truth with a smile, Ash almost catching it. “A topic for a better time. I’m going to head up to the VIP section, follow behind me once you are certain enough time has passed that it isn't suspicious.”

“I’m always suspicious though. People are always looking at me.”

“That's because you’re oh so good looking.” Heaths look grew momentarily quite wicked, and for a flicker of a second some of that mortal vanity Ash thought might have gone entirely flared to life like a roaring inferno on a dawn facing rooftop.

* * *

Saorise’s entourage had taken his every measurement, sending a swarm of professional shoppers out to bring back only the finest of the fashion world for him. It was not an act of generosity, but one of power and status that she could wreath her newest agent in only the best. And yet somehow they had collectively decided Ash would best represent the Coven in a pair of speedos so low cut they were dangerously close to requiring a bikini wax, and so tight he was quite certain it could be witnessed whether the wearer was circumcised or not. Blood flow would also be an issue if that hadn't permanently stopped being a concern quite recently.

He put his clothes in the locker provided, aware of the guard on duty watching him. He was staring from behinds dark sunglasses, Ash at first wondering if it was common lust or otherwise. As far as he could tell nobody even slightly connected to the undead underworld was straight, and he had to wonder if it was a product of the blood or was it that those who had lived concealing their true nature simply were more appealing candidates for the change.

With a blink his perspective flipped, thought tinted lenses he saw himself and how unnaturally still he was. No breath, no subtle movements, every action quick and mechanical. He looked like an animated corpse puppeteered by something dangerous and terrible.

When the security escorted him up to the roof it became almost painful just how tense they were. With every step they flinched back almost imperceptibly, carefully keeping at least three paces distance at all times. They were twice Ashs size, arms thicker than Randals, and they were incredibly aware just how much danger they were in just being in a fairly enclosed space with a vampire. Ash found it an entirely strange reversal.

The door to the roof was opened for him with a stiff gesture to go through. Ash nodded and smiled thankfully, watching the bob of their adams apple as they swallowed, and the rise in their pulse when they realised that a vampire was looking at their neck.

His presence did not go unnoticed, a ripple of awareness spreading out from his arrival and returning with a wave of hunger as the elite of Hollywood raked their eyes up and down his body trying to get a measure of him. He had becoming quickly acquainted with the need for blood, but this was something so much more insidious and wholly human. His presence meant status or fame or power, a thing to be tapped and exploited as easily as any vampire could take blood and life from a human. They wanted him.

A pretty young man rose from the hot tub and approached with confidence, pulling him in for a hug. He was the kind of dangerously skinny that was in fashion on the runways, high cheekbones and sandy coloured hair.

“I’m glad you could make it.” Their smile was a subtle thing, and Ash had no idea who they were until they flashed a much more familiar smile, soft and melancholic, and for just long enough that there was a hint of sharp teeth.

Ash allowed himself to be lead to the tub, Heath hooking his arm with theirs and leaning shoulder to shoulder. His skin was still warm from the water, and if he concentrated there was the slightest edge of something else that he suspected was whatever strange magic that animated them being burned as fuel to hold the image.

The water was almost unbearably hot, a sharp shock after being never more than room temperature for a few days.

“River, darling, just where have you been hiding them all of this time?” She was blonde, surgically maintained, and rotting from her nose up to her brain when Ash first laid sight upon her. The scent was still on her, floral and chemical, her pupils blown wide.

“This is Ash, and I’ve not been hiding them. Just keeping them all to myself.” Heath put his hand on Ashs knee, running it up his thigh. Ink spiralled up his arm, familiar markings of the occult and otherwise forming as Ash relaxed into the touch. The image lasted for a little longer than most, sandy blond hair turning sunbleached, green eyes to amber, and friendship to guilt. He had no intentions of leading Heath on, if there actually was any actual sincerity in his affection. He had been warned that the Iscari were often casual with their hearts, or at least appeared that way.

Ash didn't visibly recoil, but Heath most certainly felt him tense.

A middle aged man wearing swimwear better suited to half his lifetime ago leant over, producing a waterproof business card and offering it with a flourish. Had Ash not been in water he was quite certain that it would have been slipped with groping hands between the spaghetti strings Saorises entourage had poured him into.

“If you’re ever looking to break into modelling, and with cheekbones like that I strongly urge you do, my agency can hook you up plenty fine.” His teeth were pearly white, almost plastic, and somehow more unsettling than the array of fangs he had seen in the last few nights gone by.

“That's appreciated, thank you.” Ash copied Heaths soft tone and almost sad smile, simply relaxing into the water and stretching out his senses for signs of anything out of place. The conversation continued around him with only the occasional word needed from him, Heath keeping them distracted.

Casting open his power so wide and so unguarded was perhaps a mistake. He found himself growing less and less comfortable with their presence, could feel their hands all over him, expensively manicured nails digging into his skin and dirty things whispered in his ear, all wreathed in expensive perfumes and colognes and silken sheets.

Repulsed and trying to hide it he wished to be anywhere else, tugging at a loose thread somewhere deep in the blood. Heath sensed the edge of it, shooting them a questioning look while trying not to be noticed doing so.

There was a shriek from one of the socialites as the water went from hot to cold and drew their attention away from the fact that Ash was blurring at the edges.

They all scrambled out of the water with a flurry of curses and yelps, Heath feeling it was still almost scalding hot and quite certain that the chill they had felt was not of the natural world. He had been near Golgotha magic before, knew its signs closely. Iscari lost themselves to the faces they wore, Mavvar to the desires of others, but the Golgotha were subject to the pull of the cold dark below.

He grabbed Ashs hand and pulled him up out of the tub when it became obvious he was not going to do so himself, squeezing a little too tightly to snap him back to himself.

In the commotion one of the guests, oddly overdressed in clothes ever so slightly out of fashion, politely excused herself. Ash saw her but chose not to intercept. Attack dogs that smelled of roses were in her immediate future, a knife to the gut and a bat to her skull.

Her defences dropped for just a moment as she fled, but it was not Iscari that Ash felt. There was a strong suspicion that there was more going on than he had been told.

“Waters warm again.” One of the humans dipped their foot in experimentally. “I wonder what the fuck that was about.”

“Someone must have flushed a toilet or ran a shower nearby.” Ash added, tugging at Heaths elbow in what he hoped was a subtle way.

“Seems fine to get back in.”

“I think we’ve had enough of that, chlorine is terrible for your skin and dries my hair to straw.” Heath wrapped a loose wave of hair around his finger and wringed out a few droplets of moisture, flicking it away.

“Be a shame to ruin it, the pair of you are so flawless. You have to tell me your secret, who’s your aesthetician?” She was asking in the hope that she could replace her current yearly dip under the scalpel for something that didn't leave her fighting a painkiller addiction that was almost certain to win.

“Why spoil the secret?” The secret was two pricks to the neck and a pint and a half of damnation.

“Maybe next time, you should always leave a little mystery unsolved. Its how they remember you.” Heath laughed, a thing too bubbly and rich to be even the slightest bit sincere.

Taking Ash by the hand he lead him up toward the bar, swiping a laminated menu and pretending to be making a decision what flavour of obnoxiously neon bright alcohol he was in the mood to throw up the next morning.

He would have looked entirely at ease if it wasn't for the deathly tight grip on the drinks menu and the tensing of his jaw.

“You okay?” Ash knew he was not, but asked anyway.

“Always. Its just a struggle to hold the image for this long. We need to identify the target soon.” The voice was starting to crack, a little of Heath echoing in through River.

“Blonde, pale, blue pinstripe suit, waistcoat, fled down the stairs about a minute ago.”

“You sure?”

“Teeth too sharp.”

“I’ll call that a success. I need to drop this image before it starts to hurt.” Heath drew a long breath, trying to bring some measure of balance between the self and the other.

Ash could almost see it, the illusion growing stronger by the second and putting pressure on the reality beneath, bleeding over. It was like a mask trying to fuse itself to the wearers face, but perhaps worse in the way the lie fought and twisted its way into the soul and tried to make itself truth. He had to wonder just what the Mavvar suffered for their gifts, thus far he had only seen the joy and camaraderie in much the same way he had seen only the glamour and beauty of the Iscari.

Even when free of the Abattoir there was a little too much of River in him, a swagger to his walk and a razor edged smirk too confident for Heath, but it was fading slowly and taking anything resembling good spirit with it. Heath had seemed something that could pass for happy for time, but the reality he was facing again was weighing heavily.

Heath hailed a taxi down and bundled Ash into it, lighting a cigarette as he sent him off alone to deal with Saorise. Ash could see it about him, a halo of doubt eating away at his foundations. There was something more there, an empty manilla folder in a locked cabinet running laps around his thoughts. An unusual omen, one that stuck with him for far too long for how strangely mundane it seemed and how deeply the thought of it struck fear in his heart.

It was only when he arrived back at the hotel did he let it fall away, throwing a stack of notes to the driver to hang around for a half hour so he could debriefed on the mission, and then onwards to what was most certainly not a date and unfortunately would contain no debriefing of any kind. Unless he got very lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Thoughts?


	4. The First Date

Ash returned to the hotel and headed straight for Saorise. There was gossiping chatter from all corners, the lobby and bar as full of hungry corpses with too much spare time as it always was. If he had not been told there was currently a civil war he would never have guessed it from their idle presence. He was starting to understand just how the Mavvar were able to tear so much territory from them when so many would not raise themselves in their own defence.

Saorise was busy with a meeting with what Ash suspected was her upper council, their image all vipers and bloodied knives under the polite smiles and designer suits. Each was a baron of their little parcel of carved up Los Angeles, trading fealty and servitude amongst the fresh and foolish for favour from the Elders. There was gaps in the room, a handful of Lords and Ladies forced from their domain by snarling fang and by laughing shadow.

Three stood out more than the others. First a woman who seemed direly young to be shown such deference, her image beneath too fancy attire wreathed in blood and fire, a sword on her hip and a cloak made from the torn flag of a tiny European state dead for half a millennia. There was an old man with a too kind smile, grandfatherly and trustworthy, he carried the scent of tobacco, sweat and the leather of a whip bloodied against human flesh dragged half way across the world to serve his land and ego. The last stood out the farthest in its unnatural absence, their image refused to be remembered, no detail recallable, just that the darkness licked at their heels like a broken hunting dog.

Saorise silenced them all with a single raised finger to her lip, pausing to let her presence ripple out through the room before giving a beckoning nod to Ash that they may step forward. As one her council turned to Ash, parting so that he might pass.

“The short version if you would please, I am quite occupied right now.” Her tone was even, balancing polite with commanding, but there was something thorny to it that suggested he not say anything that might be best known only to her.

For a brief moment his eyes were drawn to the table she had been sitting at, to the scatter of maps and documents, annotated and edited, something to be consider later.

“Myself and the other agent identified the target. They left the location once they realised they were being tracked.” He was careful with his words, feeling the edge of the curiosity of the crowd and something more sinister as the music played a shrill note of warning and one of the Golgotha pulled back from their probing as if bitten.

“And the other agent?” Saorise raised an eyebrow, finding it strange that Heath would send a new agent alone to collect the praise and glory he had always clawed and scraped so direly for.

“Sent me to inform you of the task being completed before heading to their other duties.”

“Understood. Thank you for the report, take the rest of the night as you see fit. You are dismissed.” There had been a barely there flicker of a smile momentarily, of either genuine appreciation or carefully practised ease.

“Thank you.” Ash gave a theatrical bow; a fine mix of dramatic flourish and an utter mocking disregard for her office and authority that toed the line between Golgotha cheekiness and outright insult. For it he got only a very sharp look and promptly ignored as she went back to her gathered council of backstabbing bastards. The Golgotha present, minus one nursing a headache born of a mental link snapping back, gave Ash their approval with toothy grins and one blown kiss carried with a royal wave. The Mavvar, few that they were, spared him no obvious look or gesture but there was just a little too much laughter in the eyes of a few of them that had likely not been present before.

Randal had told him to never bow to any, had made him promise as much, but would perhaps forgive him for it when it held the servitude and submission of a raised middle finger and an impolite suggestion where to put it.

He had also told him not to draw attention to himself. He had failed that task too.

With little time to spare Ash returned to their room and hoped to change clothes to something considerably less fitting of an agent. To his disappointment even the plainest of plain t shirts were designer, carefully tailored to be a second skin. Most noticeably nothing was lightly coloured, absolutely nothing white, anything that might stain red easily kept far from the undead.

He wanted to make a statement, to get a reaction. He had a passing idea why he wanted to do that, but chose to not think about it as hard as he could.

The boldest statement was to go naked, but human decency was a thing to be ignored at his own peril. It would end in handcuffs, and not the sort that came with black leather, hot candle wax in exciting places, and where he could say ‘banana’ or ‘begonia’ or recite the pledge of allegiance to be let free.

The other option was to swipe a dress from the extensively large closet of a certain Regent Saorise, an image Randal might find quite visceral, but certain unsavoury sorts with the poisoned whispers of long dead priests in their ears might take great exception to that. As a mortal he had feared those sorts, worn his rainbow hued secret where they could not see, but as a vampire he would happily break those sorts of evils and make them run on shattered legs and cry through mangled faces.

He had to settle for plain and unassuming. He almost hated it, saved only by how well it fitted.

* * *

The taxi dropped him off right at the bar, a space always open by some trick of daubed blood and power drawn from the dark below, always missed by those searching for anything other than Saturnalia.

Ash paid his fare and straightened his appearance as much as possible, trying hard not to fret over it.

As he approached the door opened with a jingling of a bell, an almost familiar Golgotha letting themselves out.

“Brother.” Zhang gave a curtsy with the tails of his dinner jacket. “A disappointing choice of attire for a date, I would have thought the borrowed black lace the better option.”

“That was my second thought.” Ash just laughed, sensing no threat but most certainly a thread of deceit for once not directly tangled up with his own. Like two ships passing in the night they could only flash their lanterns in code, understanding but not able to truly talk.

“The first was a tad too bold if I do say, casual nudity is a fourth date kind of thing. Unless you’re a hussy, and who can say no to a hussy with everything flapping out?” Zhang licked his lip, his eyes shining out from under the unnaturally harsh shadow of his hat.

“I can think of someone who might.” Ash raised his arm, rolling up his sleeve and rubbing at black spirals of ink they could both almost see.

“I tend not to value high the opinions of men who are just terrible at dirty talk.” There was a flicker of the future there, too much, too far, too many branches spreading out into the infinite darkness and trying so hard to pull Ash down into the mysteries they saw.

“How would you know?” Ash tilted his head slightly, his look amused curiosity but his spirit clawing at the surface of the world as the insight tried to drag him down into the cold and fill his lungs with salt water.

“I’m not so lucky if that's what you think. I am as greatly endowed with insight as he is in the gentlemans department. I wish you well this evening, and I’ll be taking my leave. Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do without getting photographic evidence.”

Zhang shuffled past him and was gone the moment he passed the edge of the light cast from the bar. As his presence faded so too did the thin thread of connection, Ash returning entirely to himself.

It took a long, deep breath to finally shrug the last of it off.

The sign outside was faded, wood as old and dry as kindling, a painted ‘Saturnalia’ brilliant red and swirling.

Inside had an echo to it on the other side, half there snippets of conversation between golden age starlets and crooked politicians bouncing off the walls, live jazz from a band, and all of it sounding like it came from an old radio in another room. Even the ever present music took a static laced tone at the place.

“Ash.” His name sounded so fond in his voice, husky and authoritative, cutting through the noise both real and other. Randal waved from the farthest corner, raising his glass invitingly.

“Vandal.” Ash sauntered over, finding a dazzling smile on his own face before he could stop it. Any hope of acting calm and collected, to lay on his charms and wiles, were entirely destroyed.

“For fucks sake, come take a seat unless you plan to gawk at me all night.” Randal gently shook his head, muttering something that sounded quite like ‘fucking Gols’ to himself.

Ash took his seat in the booth, the old leather squeaking as he shuffled to find a position he liked. His body no longer seemed to find discomfort in anything but the most extreme of positions, but equally found no comfort in any either. There just just a strange neutrality to it. He settled for a forward slouch, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

With a tilted head and a look of curiosity he nodded toward the glass, the scent coppery and familiar but laced with something cold and sharp.

“Its from someone drunk, only way we can keep it down.” Randal chuckled at the dawning look of understanding, taking a sip.

“Willingly given?” Ash thought he should have been more concerned, that before his turning he would have been.

“You’d be surprised, more than a few get off on being bitten.” He didn't seem to approve much, a slight snort of irritation at the thought, but was drinking it regardless.“So what's your poison, plain or spiked? I won’t judge if you want to keep a clear head.”

Ash thought for a moment. He had never been a great appreciator of alcohol, but he had also never been a great appreciator of blood and that had been an unexpected pleasure.

“Spiked. I’ll trust you to pick a flavour. If there is flavours. Is there flavours?”

“A, B, O, positive and negative, ‘mildly buzzed on wine coolers’ up all the way through to ‘in a fucking coma from drinking floor polish’.” Randal made a motion as if underlining each item on a menu.

“Something fruity with an umbrella?”

“One Heath with a parasol, coming up.” Randal gave a bark of a laugh, showing his sharp teeth. He hopped up off his chair with enthusiasm, rolling both his shoulders as if he needed to stretch. His steps toward the bar were heavy, noticeable, the other patrons living and dead alike parting at his presence.

There was a napkin left on the table, covered in scrawled images that once Ash had noticed could not draw himself away from. The inner music grew, drawing to a crescendo until he found himself plucking the little square of paper up and studying it. The images burned and writhed and rutted, beautiful one moment and grotesque another. There was something else there, familiar, beckoning him to look ever deeper.

He did not hear Randal return, only snapping back to himself when the napkin was snatched from his hands and the tall stem of a glass was put in its place.

The blood was thick and sugary, decorated with a wedge of lime, a pink paper umbrella, and a lit sparkler.

“This was from someone called Abigail who apparently has an unending capacity for raspberry daiquiris.” Randal folded the drawing up and slipped it into a pocket.

“Thank you. I love it.” Ash was transfixed on the sparkler with childlike joy, sitting up straight and watching the sparks dance and fly, each moment leaving an afterimage of potential futures as surely as tea leaves or the entrails of an augurs bird might.

The first sip was sweet and cloying, the scent almost overwhelming. After than first gentle taste he took a big gulp and almost got both the lime and the umbrella doing so.

“Glad you’re enjoying it.” Randals own drink was smokier, the colour a richer amber brown. “Those drawings were just something to pass the time, vampires seem to have a thing for being fashionably late so I got used to carrying a pen around with me.”

“They were beautiful, I didn't know you had such a hidden talent. Colour me impressed.”

“Was that A pun? because it was a shitty one.” Randal narrowed his eyes with only half seriousness.

“Take the compliment.” Ash shook his head, not hiding his amusement.

“I’m just teasing.” Randal relaxed a little more, a warm look passing through his features. “I appreciate you saying it.”

He reached across the space, laying a hand over Ashs for just a moment.

The connection lingered, insight forming a shape in the darkness.

Randal was alone on a pedestal, an ocean of worshippers reaching up with snatching hands and uttered prayers wanting nothing of him and everything of his image. His face was brave, the perfect ideal of the revolutionary leader, and beneath it was a lonely man who could never open up.

Ash blinked it away, a strange ache forming in his chest that he couldn’t quite identify.

“Then I’ll say it every time you need to hear it.” It hadn’t meant to come out so softly, so rawly sincere.

“Don’t go worshipping the ground I walk on. Get enough of that from the rest of the pack.” There was a glimmer of that sadness there peaking through that bold exterior.

“Then I’ll say it only when I mean it.”

“How about a toast, to the starry eyed newbie and his oh so handsome mentor.” Randal raised his glass.

“Handsome? I don’t need to be paying you compliments when you can clearly do it yourself.” Ash leaned forward, eyes bright with mischief.

“There's a lot of things I can do myself that I’d appreciate a helping hand with every now and again.” Randal leaned forward too, matching his challenge, almost caught in a staring contest with the Golgotha.

“A toast to helping hands then.” Ash raised his glass to Randals, and with the ‘clink’ they both returned to their senses.

“I’ll always drink to that.”

Ash leaned back in his seat, a little dazed and a little exhilarated. Randal just seemed very smug with himself.

“Look, can I be honest with you for one...” Randal was cut off by a delighted call from the bar.

“Ash, you should have said you were here!” Heath was quick to cross the room with his arms spread as if asking for a hug. Randal had carefully avoided him when ordering his drinks to not alert him to their presence.

“Fuck.” He growled just loud enough for Ash to hear rolling his eyes as if anticipating trouble. If Heath heard he gave no indication.

“I’m so sorry I didn't see you sooner, I would have gotten you special treatment if I’d known.” He tilted his head as if only just noticing Randals presence. “For both you and your guest.”

“This is Randal.”

“Oh, I know who he is. Not the company I would have expected you with.” The tension was growing by the moment, Heath playing at being oblivious.

“You’ve met?”

“In passing, before all this terrible business started and tore all the Houses apart.”

“Yeah, we were best fucking friends.” Randal spoke through clenched teeth, looking ready to smash his glass off Heaths face.

Heath gave a barely there sigh, eyes momentarily downcast.

“Sorry for interrupting, I’ll leave you to it. And Ash, I’m here if you ever need to talk.”

“I’m sure you are.” Randal said without hiding any of the venom.

“I’m glad for the offer.” Ash said diplomatically, seeming to satisfy Heath.

“Be safe my friend.” Heath returned to the bar, but was always just near enough to be watching while dealing with the other customers.

“I can just feel the love between you two.” Ash had to wonder if there was something else there. He strained his insight, feeling for the threads between them and finding precious little but the icy claws of the dark reaching up to snatch him. If they had ever been in each others beds and on each other lips there was no trace he could detect now.

“Weddings in December. You guess who's wearing the dress.” If Ash had been a little stranger and a little braver possibly him.

Ash smirked as the image took form, an ivory gauze veil flickering between Heath and Randal as if undecided. Something bold, something new, something borrowed, something untrue.

It was only when Randal swatted it away like a buzzing fly did it settle on Heath, sprouting like a lily flower into a full dress and train. Stranger than the vision itself was that Randal had almost seen it, something of Ash’s unreality bleeding over. Likely he had made a mistake trying to use his power with so little experience.

“So it would be in poor taste to suggest you two fuck and get it over with? You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.” It was a poor attempt at extracting information, to satisfy the nagging curiosity if there had been anything in the past.

“First, no. Wait, make that ‘fuck no’ just to be sure. Second, he’s really not the type of guy I go for.” Randal said it casually, raising his glass to his lip and taking a sip, his expression a sly smile and a suggestively raised eyebrow.

It had been a very deliberate choice of words, a subtle slide out of the closet and an open invitation wrapped together in a carefully practised shroud of ease. He wanted Ash to understand that he had indeed been flirting, and that he would not indulge that curiosity about his previous indiscretions both real or imagined.

“So what type do you go for?” Ash was oddly bold, the alcohol making both man and insight a little stranger than what passed for normal.

“The lions among sheep.” He spoke it with an oddly heavy tone, staring into the glass as he swirled its contents.

“Poetic. Makes about as much sense as I do on my weird nights. Explain?” Ash was hoping for dark haired and slightly crazy, but was certainly not disappointed by that answer.

“We’re vampires, the big scary monsters in the dark. But too many of us are timid, sad little things that would rather hate what we are than own it.” Randal gave a pointed look toward the bar where Heath was pouring shots for a group. “I like those that are strong, that embrace what we are and do something with it.”

“Ambition is sexy, I can understand that.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“I put my tastes out there, what revs your motor?” Randal had an oddly intense look on his face, like he was enjoying just how much Ash almost choked on his words at being questioned.

Ash considered it for some time. There was too many answer, all differently true, and a few too many of them sitting across from him with a knowing smirk. He repayed one strange answer with another.

“A kind mystery.”

“Nobodies a mystery forever.”

“That's what the kindness is for. I also wouldn't say no to someone strong enough to pick me up and break the nearest wall with me the fun way.”

“That sorta strength isn't a problem amongst our kind. Can’t say the same about kindness, too few among the dead care about more than them-fucking-selves.”

“You do.” Ash realised a moment too late that wasn’t the right thing to say even if it was the truth from his perspective.

“I do it because I have to. We’re beasts wearing a human skin, pretending we’re still people. Even this is a massive fucking joke.” He gestured to the entire bar. “We’re like lions sitting at a table and eating hamburgers, its ridiculous, and the Coven and their rules just force us to pretend that we’re something that we aren't.”

“I’m guessing there’s an alternative?”

“The Mavvar way. We are free to be beasts, no more pretending, and no Iscari holding an axe above our heads looking for an excuse to kill us for being true to ourselves. That's why we’re fighting.”

“So everyone will be feral and lawless?”

“No. If the Iscari want to play dress-up they can, I certainly ain’t going to stop them, but they can’t force us to play nice with the humans. We don’t need their protocols and etiquette to solve our problems. Two Mavvar have a problem you put them in locked room together until they either tear each other apart, fuck, or one of them backs down.”

“What about my brothers and sister of the Golgotha?”

“The Coven was just as awful to them. You really don’t want to know just how many of them she had nailed to dawn facing walls for what would be a slap on the wrist for an Iscari. They split off for their own reasons, a different kind of stupidity, but I can at least respect that they’re being true to themselves.”

“A different kind of stupidity?” There was an echo from elsewhere, a rumble of irritation and indignation that felt like golden eyes peering out from the dark. His attention was getting far too common to ignore for much longer.

“Don’t have all the details, but the core of it is they want to blow open the entire vampire world to the humans so we can all live in peace and harmony. And that somehow won’t end in us getting immediately hunted to extinction by a new inquisition fresh full of every religious fanatic that they can grab off the streets.”

“The Iscari try to slip into the light, the Golgotha want to bring the light to us, and the Mavvar just want a dark place to call their own.”

“Fair summary. Enough of all of this, I came here to not think about the war and all of this bullshit. I was supposed to ask about the Queen Bitch so that I could at least tell the others this wasn’t just a social call, but I figure she’s just got you sweeping floors and picking up the drycleaning.”

“By ‘drycleaning’ do you mean a dead Iscari agent, and by ‘floor’ do you mean the sewer dumping ground I found their body?”

“Seriously?” Randal put his glass down, giving Ash his complete attention.

“Seriously.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“No, but Saorise seemed really concerned. Gave the order that the Coven should travel in groups and watch their back.”

“Weird, she’s been downplaying the impact of the war until now. This must have shaken her for some reason. Anything weird about the killing, other than the obvious?”

“Their head was cut off and put inside a broken TV, and there was a note stuffed in their mouth that I thought was just gibberish but I think she understood.” The memory still felt wrong, like he had missed something so terribly obvious about it all.

“I’d have said it was a Golgotha trying to send a message if it wasn’t for her reaction. I would bet money that she knows what's going on and its somehow her fault. Probably a bad deal she made coming back to bite her.” Randal grew pensive, staring into his drink before shrugging it off.

There was a rumble from far away that sounded awfully like Zhang denying it was anything to do with them, a worrying confirmation if there was any truth to it.

“I’d suggest warning your people too, but try to keep my name out of it if you can.”

“Thanks for telling me at least, I’ll make sure to keep them all safe.” Randal thought for a moment, brows furrowed, before coming to his decision. “There's something I need to talk to you about.”

“Is it serious?”

“Maybe.” Randal took a sip of his drink to buy himself a moment to put the words in order. “I’ve talked it over with the rest of them and they’re with us on this. You’re not a Mavvar, but I couldn't care less about what House you’re from, and your House absolutely doesn’t mean you’re not welcome whenever.”

“So you want me to visit the beach house more often?”

“I want you to spend more time with me.” Randal froze before hastily adding. “And with my clan. You’ll learn jack shit with Saorise, and I might not be the best at this whole mentoring thing but there's a whole House full of people from every kind of life who’ll take you in and teach you this world if you want them to. I mean you might not agree with all of them, but there's some real fucking wisdom in hearing them out even if its bullshit to you.”

“You said I couldn’t join the rebellion. Too risky.”

“I say a lot of things that turn out to be bullshit, and I think its worth the risk. That's if you even want to join us? There’s a lot to it. We get in trouble a hell of a lot, and let me tell you we throw some really fucking killer parties.” Randal was almost vibrating with excitement at the prospect of having Ash join his family.

“A killer party when we’re already dead, now who’s guilty of making shitty puns?” Ash titled his head, looking smugly like he finally had the upper hand.

“That wasn’t a yes.” Randal deflected the accusation, pressing for an answer.

“And for you it’ll never be a no.” Ash just smiled. “I’m in, if you’ll have me.”

“Then lets celebrate, I’ll get you a pitcher of daiquiri Abigail and we can get properly fucking trashed.”

“I hope I don’t have to carry you home. You look heavy.”

“Have some faith in yourself, I think you could move mountains if you put yourself to it.” Randal said it with conviction, and for the first time since his death Ash started to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? The silence is deafening.


	5. The Ride

That the night before had gone so well was perhaps a bad omen in and off itself, a sense of gravity and foreboding lingering just on the edge of his senses from the very moment he woke up.

Ash awoke from his dream of a place blinding white where yellow eyes watched and examined him, asking questions he could not quite recall. He continued to ignore his invites, even when the blood craved the closeness of family and the understanding of the other lunatics. He was slowly becoming more and more certain that those feelings were not entirely his, the more he resisted the more painful the pressure became. There was a solution he could almost see, as graceful as a ballerina and as grotesque as a corpse, a thing to be bargained with to solve that little problem.

Saorise for once found him rather than sending an agent. The hotel was somewhat locked down, a suggestion that only those actively performing the tasks they were assigned might leave the premises until it was certain if there was or was not Golgotha defectors circling. Ash had settled at the bar, drinking whatever and whoever was served to him from a martini glass.

“Good evening Ash.” Saorise was stiff but polite, taking the space next to him and giving the order that she would like a drink and some privacy with just a sharp nod to the bartender. A tall glass was placed before here, decorated with crushed ice and a sprig of mint, the bartender making themself scarce.

“A delightful night to you too, your majesty.” He was not quite certain just how to address her and somehow the blood had supplied that as its answer. He had to wonder if there was truth to the rumours of his brothers and sisters being near, his strangeness felt just a little too bright to be alone.

“I’m afraid this isn’t a social visit.”

“More so the pity, I had a question without a proper time to ask it.”

“Fine, I’ll indulge you. Ask.” It was perhaps only a trick of the mind and the blood, and a very mundane one at that, but Saorise seemed to momentarily lower her guard. There was something like the first embers of fondness, a poor substitute for a mothers love and the one thing Heath craved above all other vices.

“Why was I kept?” Ash asked it plainly, but was achingly aware that there was likely no answer that wouldn’t leave him a little more in love with the rebel cause.

“I have many reasons, some I would hope have become self evident.” Saorise took her glasses off, gently setting them down on the polished stone of the bar. “Despite what you may think I didn’t do this for personal gain or for power. Your circumstances, tragic as they may be, make you a perfect representative to reach out to the other Houses with. You are a curiosity to some and a font of fresh opinions for others. I hope that you might be a stepping stone to a lasting peace.”

“Under your careful guidance?” Ash hadn't meant to sound so bitter, resentful that he was being used and at least somewhat understanding that it was for a cause he could agree on. He was in two mind about it, and many about everything else only some of which were his.

“Who else?” She seemed almost tired, her crown heavy as its image appeared to Ash. The golden paint began to flake away revealing lead, the ruby at its peak merely a tarnished spinel. Her composure returned, the walls went back up, and again she was the iron willed leader. “I don’t take this responsibility because I want to. I do it because nobody else will. The House wants war for the sake of indulging, too many think they can hunt the Mavvar for sport and are in for a rude awakening should they try, and it is only my will keeping them at bay. I will not have barbarism in the Coven.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Ash quoted, with some minor sympathy.

“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.” Saorise corrected. “And I do believe that would be my line.”

“Remains to be seen if its still yours during the curtain call.” There was a sound from the ever present noise, like a series of quick strokes of a violin string that could almost be mistaken for laughter. There was also a sensation like he had just drank paint thinner offered as a toast to victory, the urge to retch having to be suppressed.

“Your question is answered, now I’m asking something of you.”

“Is it a quest or a question from the Red Queen? Am I to slay a dragon or provide trivia?” Ash let a smile creep into his features, Saorise drawing a short breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. He was beginning to understand her tells, especially those that signalled her patience wearing thin. It was fun to chip away at those raised high defences, but only so far as it was safe to. Unfortunately Ash had yet to figure out where to draw the line and was greatly looking forward to working it out.

“There is a group of journalists that specialise in the supernatural wandering dangerously close to discovering something they shouldn’t. At last report they were heading straight for the Mavvar headquarters...” Saorise drew another calming breath, clearly irritated at how undignified the Mavvar having a run down beach house as a base of operations was to her sensibilities. “...and we cannot afford a bloodbath. I need you to deflect them. The driver is waiting outside for you, I trust you to handle this task as you see fit but I ask for discretion. Violence should be the final option, but an option none the less.”

“Understood.” Ash spun about on his bar stool, sprung to his feet and gave a salute nearly all flourish and no due respect.

Saorise just raised an eyebrow at him, picking up her drink and leaving him to his task without dignifying him with a response.

* * *

Once Ash had retrieved the nice jacket, the one with interesting padding and straps inside that expertly concealed a too pricey knife and gun with it identifying marks filed off, he headed out front to find just where his ride to the beach was.

From the alleyway across from the hotel enterance there was too many glinting eyes, Golgotha tittering in the shadows like urban foxes or raccoons, the sensation not one of malice or purpose but one of mischief. Ash couldn't help but wonder just what awful thing was due to happen that would entertain them so. Unfortunately they were watching him, something he should have realised when he climbed into the back seat of one of the Covens cars. Had he not been contemplating their presence he might have noticed the car was hastily parked at a less than precise angle, half up the sidewalk, engine idling.

“Beach, Mavvar territory if you’d please.” Ash pressed his face against the glass, something like dawning horror creeping into him when he saw them all grinning back like a pack of hyenas.

“I really don't think so brother, we have different fun planned for this evening.” Markus drawled so calmly for a man that had just slammed his foot down on the accelerator, spinning the tires in a cloud of dust and smoke before taking his side mirror and most of the paint off the drivers side against another of the covens cars.

Ash could already see Saorise in the near future, an agent whispering the news to her while she was in a meeting and that look crossing her face like she was trying to conceal that she was chewing on a wasp.

The last thing Ash saw of the lurking Golgotha was a series of salutes and a whispered almost echo that sounded half way between ‘godspeed’ and ‘have fun’. The city then became a blur, unfortunately one that had red and blue flashing lights and a wailing siren demanding they pull over.

Ash found the door locked, and the windows bared from being lowered. He was quite certain he could survive jumping from a moving vehicle, though Saorise would probably have his head for doing something so blatantly supernatural with a highway full of witnesses.

“Would you relax dear brother? We are here to slay the spirit of gravity.” Markus simply shook his head as if they were not hurtling at triple the speed limit down the wrong side of the road against heavy oncoming traffic.

“You’re a fucking lunatic.” He knew it was entirely redundant to say, but there was something cathartic to saying it.

“You say it as if this is a new revelation.” Markus lowered his sunglasses and gave a pointed look at Ash through the rearview mirror. “Stating the obvious is no talent at all. The real trick is stating the truth nobody is willing to see.”

“Like the scatter of roses across the battlefield; one to the sea, one to the slaughter, and one to the tower of ivory.” The meaning eluded him, but it felt absolutely like the truth.

“See, was that so difficult?” Markus seemed genuinely impressed, reclining the seat back as far as it would go and gripping the steering wheel with his ankles.

“The road!”

“I’m all too aware, but you aren't.” he sprung forward to grab the wheel, missing another car by too small a gap.

There was a blur right past the window of a pink cardigan and grey hair. Somebodies grandmother had almost become paste on a crosswalk.

“Markus! You almost hit someone.”

“Almost. As I said, relax, enjoy the downward spiral. Dear grandmama wouldn’t be visiting the reaper quite yet.” Markus rolled his eyes, swerving through a red light and around a corner against traffic. Ash was thrown across the back seat, hitting the window hard enough to leave spider web cracks and likely a lifetime of memory issues if he were still mortal.

“Can you please take your foot off the pedal, we don’t need more speed.”

“That is deeply and certainly untrue, but fine we’ll drive at the legal speed limit and pretend to be boring. Happy now?”

“No.” Ash finally got his eyes to focus again, going through all of the stages of concussion and out the other end in only a handful of seconds.

“I would have liked to think I missed my calling as a driver, but it seems the first customer to my taxi service won’t be leaving a glowing review in my guestbook. There is certainly no pleasing some people.”

They braked abruptly, the only thing keeping Ash from being thrown through the windscreen was his deathgrip on the back of Markus seat.

He did not let go of it until Markus opened the door for him and beckoned him to exit.

Ash managed to get himself out of the vehicle, finding his legs terribly shaky.

“Apologies for the rough treatment. It wasn’t my intention to scramble up your insides quite so harshly, I know you’d much prefer that from someone a little more six foot yes tall and blond.” There was a wickedness behind his eyes, more like the teasing of an older sibling over a first crush than anything really venomous.

“Saorise if going to kill us for this.” Ash motioned to the entire side of the car. What little was left of it.

“She is a kind and forgiving soul, she’ll find it in her heart to let this transgression pass.” Markus chuckled to himself. “More importantly I needed you to be away from her for a little while, can’t clear the board when there’s the Red Queens knights and pawns smothering you. We hunt an elusive truth tonight.”

“So why am I here? What truth am I supposed to see.”

“Revelation takes time, give it its fair due.” Markus put his hands into his pockets and began to stroll down the first alley he crossed, passing a drunk woman in frightfully little clothing to face the night air with. “I do this some nights, watch the world both living and dead. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I listen.”

“Any wisdom to be learned?” Ash kept pace with him, always a half step behind and finding the streets passingly familiar. They had not travelled terribly far, simply in circles.

“Much and little. The real truth is under the surface, if you have the stomach to rip off the skin and study the roots.”

“And what do you find in this grisly augury?”

“The way their world touches ours, and how ours influences theirs. We look for the cause because that is what we want to see, a single ‘where’ or ‘who’ to put the blame, without seeing that it is all the effect. There are a thousand thousand tiny causes, and just as many tiny effects.”

“Is that why us seers go so man tracking them all?”

“One reason amongst many.” Markus smiled, for a short time seeming genuinely impressed before growing suddenly sombre and serious. “There is something we must first discuss, a dire need for us to act and for you to know...” He snapped his head to the side as if hearing a warning.

It took a moment to sense his presence, subdued and subtle, twinkling like a dim star and terribly Iscari.

Heath was dangerously far from Coven territory.

Ash had seen a map on Saorise’s table during his brief debriefing, pins and coloured string marking the edges of each House’s influence. This particular place was skirting the edge of all three and thus the last place to ever willingly be. The map was dotted with holes that suggested the peripheries of Iscari domain was being ceded to the Golgotha, the Mavvar tearing uneven chunks out of any point where their borders dared touch. The pins had danced and twisted when he focused on them, borders writhing like snakes, a single point with no conspicuous value or merit drawing his attention as if it were direly vital. It was like a black hole, its gravity turning the tides of the quiet little war between the Houses, a clash of blades and teeth and bullets with a madman pirouetting at its heart under hot spotlights and the roar of an adoring crowd.

He had decided not to share that particular vision with his Regent.

Heath had been oddly confident, moving with great purpose, at least until he realised he had an audience. He locked eyes with Ash and was seemingly struck with panic. His pose slipped instantly into a relaxed slouch, his eyes cast downward and a soft smile put exactly where it should have been like it had always been there.

“Is that Heath?” There was a shimmer to him, like he might have been a vision. The moment he focused on it he solidified, all too real.

“Of course it is.” Markus seemed irritated at the disturbance, biting the inside of his cheek before slipping back into his aloof demeanour.

Heath approached, a genuine warmth to his expression that Ash was quickly learning was not so genuine after all.

“So where does the pretty polaroid find the current carrying him tonight?” Markus asked it with just a little bite to his tone, Heath startling as if only just realising his presence.

“Just business, nothing new.” He reached for a pocket to draw a cigarette, and with a quick flick the air was strongly scented with the sweetness of a struck match and the foul bitterness of tobacco smoke.

“Awfully far from where the herd usually grazes.” Markus narrowed his eyes at the lit tip, wafting the smoke away like an offending fly buzzing about his head.

“We all have our responsibilities.” Heath took a long drag, letting it slip from his lips slowly. “I hope you are doing well Ash, to be so far from ‘The Herd’ as your choice of company puts it, is no small thing.”

“You doubt his capabilities?” Markus raised an eyebrow.

“Of course not.” Heath raised his hands defensively.

“Then you doubt mine.” Markus openly displayed his ire, leaning forward to invade just the edge of his personal space. The mood noticeably chilled.

“I’ll be fine, I promise you that. Go attend to your duties, I won’t hold you any longer.” Ash spoke diplomatically, stepping ever so slightly forward as if to block them from each other.

“I’m glad to hear that. I don’t want you to ever think you are alone in this, I’ll always be here to help you if you need me. The change isn’t easy for any of us, even Markus had to do it at some point.” His smile was soft, but his stare was intense. Markus just rolled his eyes at him.

“You already have my promise.”

“I know, I just care too much. I wouldn’t know what to do if I woke up to a report that you’d been hurt. A warning though, there's been fighting nearby and I can’t tell what Houses were involved. Try to stay clear of it.”

“We will.”

“Good. Saorise phoned me a little while ago, warned me that there may have been a sabotage attempt on one of our vehicles.”

“Oh no.” Ash tried to keep his face straight, hopefully succeeding.

“So close to the Hotel too. I’ll be heading to my duties, good luck to you tonight.” Heath gave a short wave a swiftly left.

“See you around.” Ash waved back.

There was something else. The dark below was roiling and fighting, disturbed by something near. Markus felt it, staring at a point just behind Heath with a look of mild irritation.

Markus seemed to be counting in his head, waiting for the time until he was completely gone.

With a thunder crack the sky opened, an instant deluge of icy cold rain that made Ash almost yelp.

“What auspicious timing.” Markus idly commented, looking up into the downpour. “If only it didn't make my hair so terribly unmanageable, I suppose we should find shelter.”

It was a covered bus stop that offered them salvation from the wet, Markus taking a seat and staring out into the rain.

A time went by, both lost in their thoughts. It was Ash that broke the silence with his curiosity.

“You don’t like Heath much, do you?”

“I wouldn’t put it so simply and so plainly. I dislike his nature, his self pity degrades him and drags others down with him.” He sighed as if remembering something long ago. “Had we not crossed the path of that little lost child we would be where I wanted to take you already, but instead we are waiting for a bus that will never arrive with the scent of smoke clinging to us. I cannot abide smokers, they poison the world far more than it already is, choke the life from themselves and others with their selfish choices.”

“Like pity?” Ash could see it sometimes around Heath, his pity like a smog that permeated everything he did and everything he was. If he could ever let go of it greatness might shine through.

“A quick student, If only you had chosen me to be your mentor instead. That may have been a better unlife for you.”

“I made my choice.” Ash had chosen Randal and the Rebels, drawn to everything about them.

“I don't think it was ever yours to make. Not really.” Markus stood, leaning against the wall of the shelter. I had hoped to show you something, but it seems nature has decided elsewise, perhaps it should be here then that I make you an...” Markus was again interrupted, trailing off as if distracted.

This time it was Mavvar, a small pack of them moving at some speed. The air grew bitter even through the cold with vampire blood sharp and vile, the group carrying a limp body that Ash felt no vital spark from.

Jack stopped to wave at Markus, motioning to the corpse before catching up to the rest. He hadn’t even seemed to have noticed Ash, his attention only for Markus.

“i know an omen when I see one. I think its best we leave this for another night. I think a third interruption would be fate telling me off for my hubris.” Markus just shook his head.

The ever present sound grew oddly loud at his words, as if agreeing with him.

The third interruption arrived at mild speed, the black sedan slowing to a stop right at their shelter.

Saorise’s preferred agent, the one most likely her right hand enforcer, leaned out of the window motioning for him to get in.

“I’m betting Heath ratted us out.” Ash laughed to himself, turning to find Markus gone. “And I am left to face my fate alone, thanks Markus.”

“Saorise sent me to recover you. This area is not safe and one of our field operatives reported you were out here and might need assistance returning safely.” There was an echo of genuine concern bouncing around inside the agent. It seemed the regent cared at least a little.

“I appreciate the thought.”

The ride back was uneventful beyond his mounting nerves, and to his surprise Saorise had no words of anger or recrimination. He had expected to be flayed, or at least whipped in the way that wasn't pleasantly paid by the hour to a delightful lady in black leather. Instead she just seemed relieved that there had not been blood spilt from one of her own. That reaction sat uneasily with him, the image of the tyrant bending in the face of the reality he was experiencing.

More worryingly the visions had become oddly fixated upon his return. He could not help but find flower motifs in the wallpaper and carpet that had certainly not been present before, every vase and empty space filled with bouquets of red roses. Either Saorise was being courted by the dark below, or there was something important that he had to know and somehow did not. It irritated him, but no respite was to be found until dawn came and in sheets that should not have smelled like sugared lokum he found some semblance of peace.


	6. The Funeral

There a knock on his door, short, curt, the exact measure of polite. Ash impolitely ignored it, burying his head into the pillow with a frustrated groan.

There was another knock, followed by a prickle of irritation from nearby. He couldn’t usually sense feelings so sharply, ‘but I certainly can brother’ bouncing neatly into his thoughts.

This time the door rattled, the electronic mechanism giving a distressed ‘beep’ as it died. Markus strolled in and flicked the light switch, swinging a set of lockpicks that most certainly should not have worked on that sort of door.

Saorise followed him in with a sniff of disdain at being ignored, making a mental note to have all of the security systems properly probed and inspected for vulnerabilities.

Ash had, for the first time in a very long time, chosen to sleep naked. The idea to do so had come to him from seemingly nowhere and he was starting to suspect it was not all that much of a random coincidence. Somewhere in the city there was likely a fellow Golgotha with brilliant insight laughing to themselves. Ash suspected Zhang.

With a theatrical gasp he pulled the bedsheets up to his neck as if to save his modesty, but with a cheeky grin he lowered them as if to seductively flash a little flesh like a burlesque danger titillating their audience.

Saorise was not titillated in the slightest and answered with a silent disdainful stare as Markus made a motion like he was throwing dollar bills at a wholly different type of entertainer in the business of removing clothes.

There was a sigh from the Regent, memories coming back all too strongly of those nights only a few years earlier where the Golgotha were plentiful in the Coven. Being neck deep in lunatics with moderate to severe boundary issues was something she certainly did not miss.

Ash almost pitied her before remembering certain awful secrets Randal had imparted on him. For all the evils she had committed Ash could see some pattern to it all, a cast iron belief that what she did was for the good of all. That was worth his pity, as she tried to strengthen her hold more of her power slipped away.

Markus laughed at Ash’s internal thoughts, shaking his head.

“You look comfortable on this fine evening.” Markus grabbed a chair and spun it around toward the bed, draping himself over the arm of it without even a hint of an offer to pull one up for Saorise. She chose to stand regardless.

His look could have been mistaken for the sort of impure Ash was no stranger too, a leering intensity with hooded lids and a crooked smile. A single deep look proved it wasn’t in the slightest, his feelings reflected as mischief rather than lechery. It was all pantomime to rattle against the Regents sensibilities.

“I’m going to assume this isn’t the weekly book club meeting?” Ash sat upright in his bed, pooling the sheets around himself like a toga.

“Not quite so, but if we’re starting one I’m quite partial to Dracula.” Markus made an airy motion.

“If you are both quite done we can discuss the real business at hand.” Saorise stood tall, clasping her hands together in much the same way she would before making a grander announcement. “To keep things short the Mavvar have called a temporary ceasefire to mark the passing of an influential member of their house. For one night only any Golgotha or Iscari that wish to attend to give proper due to the deceased will be allowed into their territory. I was intending to use this event as a chance to negotiate but quite simply the risk is too high given my position. So you are going as my representatives.” Saorise ran through the plan at speed, taking a small moment to collect herself before adding a single last though. “And just for the record Stoker was a repressed drunkard not worth the accolades history has given him.”

“I believe we are the canary in this situation, tweet tweet as we are lowered into the mine.” Markus chuckled to himself, something worrying stirring just beneath his surface thoughts that Ash could not quite reach, like the shadow of a great leviathan under a frail fishing boat and just as unnerving.

“The canary usually doesn’t volunteer itself for the task. As I recall you came barging into my office offering your services and volunteering Ash here to go with you.” Her look was icy and had absolutely no impact on Markus.

“That I did.” Markus was absolutely guiltless for a man so terribly guilty.

“This task is time sensitive so I suggest you be ready to leave by the end of the hour.” Saorise turned on her heel to make her exit, pausing to make one final suggestion. “Be careful, this situation is likely more delicate and infinitely more volatile that it appears. The Mavvar can turn feral at the slightest provocation so be ready to deal with that. I would rather not lose any more lives pointlessly, so be careful.”

Ash glanced at the blinking red letters of his clock and frowned. Too little time.

“I’d be happy to go.” Ash finally got his words in, wasting it on sarcasm when nothing he might say or do short of throwing himself from the window could seemingly sway fates hold. The sound trilled slightly at the thought, returning quickly to its idle hum.

“Told you as much.” Markus shrugged haughtily, almost wearing a smile.

“Don’t play these games with me Markus, we both know you are in this solely for yourself.” Saorise stood slightly taller, almost defensively. Her tone took on an edge Ash had not yet heard, a hint at actual anger. “Whatever game you are playing I have no interesting in playing along.”

“I can neither conform nor deny that I have schemes at work, but I think in this case your desire for peace is clouding your judgement. War requires hard choices, and you are being almost downright emotional.” Markus spoke casually, but he watched her as if waiting to see which of his little barbed words would be the one to break her shield.

“Perhaps you are right in some small part.” Saorise was willing to concede a little to him, more likely a snare to draw him in than an honest acceptance of his words at face value. “But my desire for a lasting peace is not some passing fancy. It is the right thing to do. We can debate this another time when you are not wasting this valuable opportunity. Good evening to you both, I expect a full report on your success when you return. I do suggest getting dressed first though.”

“But I’m beach body ready. How else am I going to show it off?” Ash flexed his shoulders, a direly unimpressive thing when he could generously be called wiry and ungenerously be called a scrawny runt.

Saorise left the room with a disgusted noise, Markus seeming quite smugly victorious in a fight Ash could not see the reason for other than amusement.

“She seems tired.” Markus speculated as if he wasn't almost entirely the cause for her exasperation. Were the Regent mortal she would likely have a headache just from his presence.

“I hope this goes better than the last time I was in a moving vehicle with you. I heard she had to trash that car and buy another.” It had been carefully and meticulously wrecked in a bad part of town, set alight with an anonymous tip off from a concerned local about the flames.

“She has theft insurance, its all quite alright. I’ll leave you to decide your attire. I do suggest black, this is a funeral after all.”

Markus went from lounging to upright in a single vaulting movement, spinning the chair back under the desk and giving a deep theatrical bow before going after the Regent to see if he could irritate her just one more time before business called him away.

* * *

The driver stopped in a parking lot as close to the beach house as possible, immediately accelerating away with a burst of burnt rubber and smoke the very moment his charges were dropped off. The journey there had been one of idle small talk and the increasing difficulty of ignoring the tight wound tension rolling off their driver with each advance into Mavvar territory. Saorise had not sent her usual driver, instead opting for a young Iscari that Ash felt certain could not have been dead for much longer than he had. That the driver was deemed expendable enough to send into the jaws of danger where her usual one was not did not bode well for the mission.

A bonfire was lit near the house, flames reaching up into the sky and raining cinders and ash upon the gathered. About it was a constellation of little campfires, orbiting it each with their own groups drunk and sombre and joyful and vengeful. It was not the comfortable swell of feeling Ash had come to love about the Mavvar gatherings, the ebb and flow of waves, instead it felt like a whirlpool surrounded by rip tides. If he let go of his mind he was certain it would be torn asunder by the tidal forces, but he was also certain that his grip on his mind had been slipping since that first sip of ancient blood and it was all down from there.

It was Markus that pulled him back from the edge. Ash had not even been wholly aware he had been leaning ever closer to it. A single nudge was all that was needed either way, Markus’ presence cutting thought the tides like a galleon or tanker ship.

As they approached it was Jack they found first out of all the Mavvar he had met. He was sat on a deckchair with someone all too human, laughing harder and harder at whatever it was she was saying. Rose petals fell from her mouth as she spoke, her words a stream from mind to mouth that would give any child of Golgotha fair competition.

Ash thought at first he was mistaken, pushing and probing hoping to find the edge of the illusion and finding none. Her pallor was painted, as was the dark red of her lips and the deep shadowing of her eyes. Her strangeness was entirely human.

“Just gonna gawk or do I get an introduction?” She was looking at him, rising to her feet with a quick movement and a quick double flick of her hand to shake off the sand.

“Ash.” He almost offered his hand, too many stiff Iscari introductions training that habit into him.

“Alleusha, I’m a friend of Markus and Jack.” With a pair of quick gestures she flickered between them, the suggestion to it that she protected and was most certainly off the menu. “And I’ve heard about you.”

“Nothing good I dare hope.” Ash tried to put on a little charm if only to distract from the fact all he could see was the thorns breaking through her skin in a ghastly beautiful way.

There was a shout that might have been his name had he not been distracted, a few seconds passing before he turned already too late to escape.

If there had been air in his lungs it would have been knocked from them.

He was picked up in a crushing hug, spun about in the air with a booming laugh. There was sweetness about him like he had been drinking from someone sugary and intoxicated, an ease to him he had only glimpsed in off moments.

Randal dropped him back on the ground hard enough to throw a small cloud of sand up, Ash clearly dazed and trying to quickly put sense to the spinning.

“I missed you too Vandal.” He had only been able to visit a short handful of times in the weeks gone by, always having to slip in between duties.

“I thought I told you to make yourself known here more often.” Randal had both hands on his shoulders and was grinning like a fool. He was at least a little drunk, though sobriety came back too fast for them without constantly topping it off.

“You’ve been drinking.” Ash shook his head, trying to hide his amusement and failing.

“Its a funeral, when else am I going to be able to?” Randal pulled a flask from his back pocket, offering Ash the first sip.

“Whenever you want?” Ash took it, taking a gulp that burned hard and made him pull a face.

“If I drank whenever I wanted I’d get nothing done.”

“You’d keep me company plenty.”

“I can think of worse things.”

Markus rolled his eyes at the pair, stepping in to intervene before Ash was swept away with the Mavvar. Or more likely swept off his feet.

“I’m afraid we’re here on the Queens orders.” He gently pushed Ash aside, taking his place.

“Really?” Randal’s face scrunched up, already knowing that it was going to be trouble of some sort that would fall on him to fix.

“I’m afraid so.” Markus gave a theatrically low shrug. “We are to deliver her deepest condolences, and her regret that she could not attend personally.”

“Like she’d be welcome.” Randal snorted.

“That was near enough her sentiment.”

“Sentiment duly received, make certain she gets the appropriate amount of fucks that I give.” Randal made a motion for Ash to follow him. “I’ll be taking him with me, you can have him back at the end of the night. Maybe.”

“Have fun you two, be sure to come find me when its time for the big speech.” Markus wore a smile that bared too much fang, and something about it made Ash just a little uneasy. He was still missing something obvious.

It stopped being a concern when Marla handed him a glass of something good and he found himself next to Randal in the circle that were all listening to the story Joaquina was telling of her mortal years. It involved a handsome cattle rancher that turned out to be the youngest daughter of a European merchant family in disguise, a gang of gunslingers, a cursed burial ground that she now knew to be a place of importance to the Golgotha, and a lawman with a sharp smile who had been so impressed by her that he had offered her the one gift she hadn’t known she wanted.

* * *

Randal took his inner circle toward the raging bonfire, Ash being brought along with them as a clear sign that he was considered part of them by invitation if not by blood.

They had drank to delirium, laughter and joy, Randal never once leaving his side. Even with alcohol and strangeness running through him Ash still had not found the bravery to ask if there was something there or if it was simply enough another trick of the mind, each little stray pat on the shoulder or offered drink veiled in either subtext or a deep misunderstanding. Sometimes when Randal laughed he would spare a look his way, and in amber bright eyes Ash thought he could see the affection.

They had taken a few minutes to sober up, readying to give their speeches and eulogies.

As they gathered close to the bonfire the heat was uncomfortably fierce, something inside warning him that in death he was greatly more flammable than he had been as a mortal. The heat pooled in him, warming the borrowed blood and alcohol until he almost felt like he was alive again.

He couldn’t help but look, drawn by something insisting he see them. There was a rage to it, directed toward him but with an edge like it understood the blame was not his alone. The wood was stacked neatly, latticed, and at its core something burned brighter and left a shadowy outline. It was a funeral pyre.

Ash could not resist peaking at it from the other side. In the dark below it was burning pale and silvery like a beacon, little twinkling lights about it that had a sadness to them like longing. He knew not to disturb them and leave them to their own. The music grew louder with each moment he dwelled there, grew ever more insistent as if straining to correct its course. Something was wrong.

He returned to the real as Randal gave a mighty shout, gathering the assembled Mavvar to him.

There was a table; a simple plastic one they had tried to fancy up with a nice cloth, with a framed picture of the deceased resting atop. She was smiling out at those she had left behind even as the flame carried her bitterness.

It was a polaroid capture of her taken candidly, her expression unguarded. Ash recognised her even without the severe look on her face; blonde hair framing a sharks smile, a waistcoat of navy blue and pinstripes. With dawning horror he realised that her death was on his hands, he had been the one to flush her out of her safehouse.

Jackie was the ‘Iscari’ he had been sent to identify at the Abattoir.

Markus patted him on the shoulder, a single silencing finger raised to his lip. He had not even sensed him approach, just that he seemed to be readying for his part.

“Best let the dead have their rest, no need to stir old grudges when the Red Queen has already been tried and sentenced for this little crime.”

Ash wasn't even certain Markus had said it, just that he had heard it. The world seemed to fall away from him, the visions growing too strong as he let that little moment of fear pierce the walls he held up against the sight.

Randal started making a speech, inviting Markus to say a few words. It seemed he was relaying the Regents message from the rising jeers and muttered profanity. Ash wished he had listened more carefully but he was now too enraptured by the music. It had swelled to a fever pitch, like a madman playing a beautiful violin solo as if their life depended upon it. It was only when the first punch was thrown and he felt the near echo of someone else's pain did he jolt back into the real world to find absolute chaos.

The crowd split, cracking, the dark below yawning wide and a tide of roses rising from it. There was something familiar about them, something he was missing, something he needed to see even when the insight swore to him he didn’t.

Ash saw Randal throw himself into the fighting and panicked. He should have known that he would be fine, likely more so than any other, but fear had caught him once and now he could not say no to it again.

He wasn’t quite certain just how he did it, but he pulled on the blood and tried to tame the roiling dark. It was already surging into the world, taking strange shapes, feeding off of all of the conflict. It just needed to be tamed.

He reached out his hand and squeezed. He could feel them all, their fire barely little candle wicks against the rising darkness. He could put them all out, let the cold smother their anger and have the calm prevail. It seemed so terribly easy.

An iron like grip caught first his hand, then his mind. Both bent to another's will, Ash pulled away from the fighting as the power was forcibly diverted. The colour washed from the world and the visions grew yet more vivid as they both faded from others sight.

Markus seemed oddly intense in that moment, his red shirt the only colour in whatever half way place they had slipped into. Even through sunglasses the light behind his eyes was too bright, blood and life expended to drive whatever power he was drawing upon to make them invisible.

They moved through the crowd, dodging thrown fists and slashing knives until they breached the other side of it and kept running.

“Best you don’t ever do what you almost did. You can’t change the minds of others, except when you can, and its everyone who has to pay the dark back for the favour.” His voice echoed and trembled, some of the meanings splitting into other words in the echo. With a long blink the light behind his eyes faded back to its dull blue glow.

“I only tried to help.” The echoes were more chaotic for him, his potentials and permutations still unset, and of all of them ‘I want to rule’ rang uncomfortably loud. He hadn’t even consider it, but now that he knew it was there out in the probabilities it was too bright a thing to be easily ignored.

“By help you mean forcing your reality on them all. There are few things left in the world our kind don’t make a vice of, best you don’t develop a taste for that particular one. We’ve got enough tyrants, willing and otherwise, for you to add yourself onto that particular pile.” Markus must have thought them a safe distance away, making an airy gesture as he popped the little bubble of unreality around them and let them flicker back into sight.

“I had to do something.”

“No, you didn't. You chose to do something. Nobody forced your hand, in the end nobody can.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Right now I suggest you notice your surroundings. You are being waved at.” Markus nodded inland, taking a step back.

Zhang was sat on the concrete wall that divided the sand from the city and stood by him was Saorise’s closest agent looking considerably irritated at his present company. There was no air of conspiracy to them, just the well worn common ground of two agents in much the same field that had long since made their own arrangements to stay out of the others work.

There was a gesture that Ash should join them. The Iscari agents head snapped toward Ash with a look of warning, like he had been caught in something illicit.

Ash turned to see if it was for him or for Markus and found that he was alone, not even prints in the sand to indicate where he had gone. He waved his arm through the spot he had last been, just to be certain he wasn't just hiding.

He chose to approach.

“So were you waiting here for me to find you, or is this all coincidence?” Ash put his hands in his pockets and let himself slouch, wondering idly if that made him look perhaps a little too much like Markus.

“No such thing, and I think you know that. You _hear_ it.” Zhang let a little power enter his voice and his mind, the ripple of insight distorting the word and their perception, and making the truth he spoke undeniable.

“Golgotha.” The agent muttered to himself, a sick shudder running up and down his spine.

“Iscari.” Zhang countered with a gasp of mock offence, motioning to them both.

“Am I?” Ash raised an eyebrow, certain as he could be that he was not.

“When I look at you sideways you are. Straight on its all madness and rainbows.”

“Any other angles I should be aware of?” Ash was at least passingly aware that Markus saw him like that, a prism of possibilities reflecting and refracting timelines, but he had not thought it so obvious to others with the gift.

“From behind you are fire and force, but I have to squint to see that Mavvarness. Especially though the storm. It grows so much greater when you are Mavvar.”

“Storm?”

“You don't see it?” Zhang tilted his head as if trying to see the vision reflected in his eyes, finding a strange absence.

“Evidently not.”

“How unusual. We almost all see it and its coming haunts us night and day, aware and dreaming. A consideration for another time I do think, but I promise we will revisit this. I do adore a mystery.” Zhang gave a theatrically exaggerated stretch and stood up. “I think perhaps you two should head back to your pretty little tower and deliver the bad news.”

“Bad news?” The Iscari agent frowned.

“Oh, you haven't heard? The Mavvar are rioting, it looks like peace is most certainly not on the table.”

“What did you do?” The agent narrowed his eyes, baring teeth.

“Nothing. Sincerely. I’ve been here this whole time keeping you company.” Zhang put his hand to his heart, his honesty undermined by his lopsided grin. “This is not our work, though I do give my compliments to the instigator whoever they might be.”

The agent turned to Ash with an accusing look.

“I was there but I had nothing to do with it. Markus made a speech. It was not well received.” It was a vast understatement. Somehow they all knew by just how much.

“Oh.” The agent was already working out how best to break the news to the Regent. It was not going to go well. It seemed anger was the theme for the night, Saorise’s turn coming all too soon.

Ash followed the Agent in silence, neither of them particularly interested in idle talk. All he could do was dwell on it all, wondering if his place in the Mavvar Rebellion and the Iscari Coven had been equally compromised. He would have to face both and hope for the best, and hope was something so terribly abundant in their world and more often then not disappointing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Masquerade influences are showing again, somebody tried to use Dementation without understanding just how it works.


	7. The Change

“Boo.” Ash let the power fade, having taken a seat at the bar under its cover. It was still a strain to invoke, but with each attempt its mysteries drew closer and revealed yet more he could not yet grasp. He wondered if there was a bottom to the spiral, or if he would be searching the depths for an eternity and bargaining a little of himself away each time. He certainly felt stranger after each use.

Heath had been lost in his own mind too, focused inwards rather than outward, startling enough to fumble the glass he had been idly rolling a dish towel over despite being long dry.

“Ash.” He let out a soft cry of alarm, if he had a heartbeat it would certainly be going wildly now. “Sorry, I didn't see you coming.”

Ash leaned forward with a bright look in his eyes all too Golgotha.

“I know.” He let his smile grow wider, pulling in on the shadows until his edges blurred just enough to make his point.

“Congratulations I suppose. Did you figure it out on your own or did someone teach you?” Heath pulled a decanter from under the bar and poured Ash a glass of the syrupy sweet blood he had taken a strong favour to, topping it with an umbrella and a pineapple chunk on a cocktail stick.

“Markus, mostly. Once I saw how he did it I guessed the rest myself.” Ash took a sip, trying the pineapple with the tip of a fang before the instant revulsion toward normal food hit him hard. He had spent three nights doing little other than stare at the bathroom mirror and pull on the blood to turn invisible, and either he had succeeded or the dark below had finally taken pity on his attempts.

“I wouldn't mention him right now, not with them around.” Heath pointed with just his eyes to the Iscari delegation seated nearby.

“I can imagine.” Ash had delivered the news to Saorise along with her right hand agent. Both were dismissed from her presence the moment they finished explaining, all of her appointments for the evening cancelled.

“You really can’t.” Heath stopped to consider. “Or maybe you can, I never know how deeply you Golgotha go.”

“Enlighten me how it appears from your side.” Ash tilted his head, listening just a little too deeply so that he might understand his perspective.

“Bad. Markus is basically exiled from the Coven in every way but officially. Saorise doesn't even want his name spoken around her, its an instant bad mood for her if you do.” Heath gave Ash a top up to his drink just to keep up the appearance that he was working and not socialising. “If it wasn’t for him sabotaging the only opening we had we’d probably have the Mavvar here too, working with us toward the end of this war.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you wishing for the Mavvar to be here.” Ash spoke it with a soft laugh, but something sparked alarmingly at the thought.

“Strange times.” Heath smiled his barely there smile, eyes cast low. “And they’re getting stranger too with them here.”

Across the bar was a gathering of Golgotha, a gravity to them Ash had to pull away from else he might find himself among them and unwilling to leave. They shone so brightly, so colourfully, so invitingly, that it could only have been a trick to draw him to them so that they might make the Dark Father’s offer. At the centre of their web sat Zhang, his lights twinkling like a star field and reflecting something distant that seemed to Ash like golden yellow eyes looking out through him.

“A little strange can be good.”

“I only hope this works. I know for certain the Golgotha want no more bloodshed, they want a compromise as badly as we do.” Heath seemed momentarily light, at ease as if imagining some distant future. “We could do this, tonight, take the first step to stopping all of this.”

“A lofty hope.” Ash for a long moment felt unease. If there was a treaty between the Golgotha and Iscari it would be the Mavvar that would suffer most either way. The weight of two houses together could grind them down in war or carve out bad deals for them in diplomacy.

“Hope springs eternal dearest brother.” Zhang had crossed the room without being noticed, hovering right over Ash’s shoulder with a look of glee. “I don’t think we’ve quite met yet, Ash my friend how could you not make introductions?”

“This is Heath.” Ash did not need Golgotha insight to feel the discomfort rolling off of Heath.

“Delighted to meet you.” Zhang let his grin split wider. “The meeting is due to begin, and we have some of the nitty gritty details to hammer out. I hope you are ready.”

“We’ll be over momentarily.” His stare was unblinkingly piercing, and would have been entirely normal for Saorise on the nights where her Coven disappointed her.

Heath took a steadying breath as he left, putting on his most Hollywood perfect smile and taking Ash up toward the negotiating table. While his presence wasn't strictly required Saorise had thought it best that he be seen with Heath.

The Iscari Agent was already there, taking notes. He had a copy of the Covens core tenets with him, along with the wartime edicts the Regent had made since. A short copy of Saorise’s talking points was handed to Heath, the other diplomats taking their space behind him ready to feed him the right words should the Golgotha act unexpectedly in their negotiations.

There was a ringing of a spoon off glass, the bar falling to a muted hush of whispers.

Zhang stepped up to the negotiation table, laying his hands down dramatically upon it. He seemed to be not taking it all as seriously as the Coven was, his actions unusually theatrical even by his normally high standards of flourish.

“We have two concessions we wish to have, all others but them are entirely negotiable.” Zhang gave a pause to be certain he had the attention of all present. “The first is we want all blood pet restrictions lifted. This city has too high a vampire population for us to all be able to hunt without drawing dire attentions. We wish to be able to farm our own blood and reduce those risks. The second is we want all permissions and requirements to turn more of our kind lifted. It is a core part of our existence and one we should be trusted to do with responsibility rather than strict oversight.”

“Saorise will not be pleased to give those up without proper assurances and safeties put in place. Those rules are there for good reason.” Heath toyed with the edge of his scarf, already feeling the first trickle of hope escaping.

“That we know, and we do acknowledge her reasoning even if we don't agree with it.” Zhang made a broad sweep of the room with his arm. “To put it shortly we are bleeding out, all of us, determined each to patch the wound when we should be dealing with our condition as a whole. We seek to research our nature and find a new path, but that requires experimentation. We would seek to advance the cause entirely unhindered.”

“The sciences have found nothing of what we are.” The Agent spoke, his tone even and likely hiding his outright distrust. “You will find nothing.”

“We aren't talking about the old alchemies and wortcraft. We have our own endeavours that we wish to work toward without fear of retribution from those who refuse to understand.” Zhang pursed his lips, a wicked idea coming to him. “Ash here is proof that the restrictions on turning do not work. Whether it is law or not it will happen regardless, it is in our nature, and should we not be working toward easing our curses rather than fighting over rules and regulations?”

Heath wilted back under the weight of Zhang’s shark like smile, taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it to keep his hands occupied.

“A very Mavvar way of thinking about it.” Ash added, getting a less than pleased look from the Agent.

Heath leaned over, keeping his voice low.

“Thoughts?”

“Many and scattered. But more importantly I don’t think this is a good idea. Something is off about it.” Ash could feel the tension coiling, especially around Heath. The other diplomats were scrambling amongst themselves, content to allow them to speak for them so long as they kept in line with what the Regent had told them to do.

“Agreed. You can’t boil down this whole war to just those two things, they want us to only look toward turning and blood pets and this supposed research. Its a distraction for something.” Heath bit his lip, taking a moment to think as worry creased his brow.

Zhang coughed to get their attention, throwing them a little wave too for effect.

“I certainly respect your right to private council, but I think this might be the time to air those words for all to hear. In this is to work we need transparency.” Zhang made an airy motion. “I think in this we need a newcomers perspective, not that I don't entirely trust your wisdom Mr Heath, but I think Ash here might have the most honest vision of all of us.”

Heath for the first time Ash had witnessed seemed to almost sneer, anger showing through his carefully presented facade. The cigarette fell from his fingers, stomped out to cover that he had not meant to let it fall.

The assembled Golgotha all muttered agreements to themselves, Ash certain he had heard the cue to do so go out.

All eyes fell to Ash, the room drawing quieter as if waiting for him to say something.

“While he isn't here as an official representative of our organisation, I think his opinion does hold some merit. Go ahead Ash.” Heath was biting the inside of his cheek at being brushed aside in the negotiations, trying not to snap and do exactly what the Golgotha representative likely wanted.

Ash opened his mouth to suggest it was a bad idea without some give on the Golgotha side and was interrupted by the sound of the front door being kicked so hard it almost splintered from its hinges.

A roaring shout filled the room, harmonising together to make a riotous noise that covered all else.

“So who arranged a birthday party for me?” Randal strode at the head of his House, proud and tall and certainly ready for a fight. “’Cause I see all my favourite people all gathered in one convenient place. The crazies and the pretties.”

“This is neutral ground, we’re allowed to be here.” Heath tried to pull Ash ever so slightly behind him as if to protect him and instead found him completely unwilling to move, having to take a step forward instead.

“Doesn't seem that way anymore. Because you forgot to invite us.” Randal scanned the room, lingering on Ash for a bare moment before moving on as to not to draw unnecessary suspicion upon him.

“You had your chance at peace.” Heath bit out, standing up to Randal despite being towered over. “And you fucked it up.”

“You’re blaming me for that?” Randal leaned down, looming over him. “I’ve done nothing but give the Queen Bitch every opportunity to do the right thing and step down, and she’s spat on every attempt.”

“You want chaos!”

“We want to be free of her fucking clutches!”

“Gentlemen, can we not agree to disagree? This is a negotiation after all, why not make your case with a clear voice and true intent?” Zhang put a hand to both of their chests, trying and failing to part them.

“I’m with Zhang, this is exactly where we all need to be.” Ash stepped up, mirroring Zhang’s action. He managed to part them, Randal and Heath both willing to be moved by him.

The Mavvar shifted, a murmur of recognition going through them. Even those that had never laid eyes upon him knew his scent as familiar, always a trace of it lingering on Randal and some of the salt and sea air clinging to him in return.

“Is this Ash?” One of the Mavvar pointed limply to him with her gun and a questioning look at Randal.

Time seemed to pull back, hue draining from the world. The already well worn thin reality of Saturnalia bleached as if soaked in sun and salt, only Randals amber bright eyes holding any trace of colour.

Ash took a moment to survey the vision, finding a pressure against them when they tried to move. Each small action seemed to force time forward ever so slightly, as if he had suspended himself in a still moment that was struggling to be maintained.

“Huh.” The sound echoed and trembled, Ash turning toward it to find Zhang had somehow wormed their way into his vision.

With little difficulty he raised his hand to his hat, flicking it playfully up high enough that his questioningly raised eyebrow could be seen. That small action had pushed events forward just enough, a fiery flash and a ripple of gunpowder blooming between them.

Something momentous was supposed to happen, and somehow he had been dragged into the wake Ash was cutting across the surface of fate, the waves of what was to be crashing against the shore of what was supposed to happen.

Ash turned toward the Iscari agent, considering if he was fast enough to stop them from firing as he watched the bullet inch ever so slowly forward.

Zhang instead turned to the Mavvar, frozen in a tableau like a terrible modern art piece about ill thought out political manoeuvres. Fate was a hard thing to steer even if he felt inclined to interfere, and he knew full well Ash would try and almost definitely not succeed.

He paused when he realised that Randal was looking at Ash and was most certainly not completely still. There was a sharpness to his expression, a sneering look of malice and hunger that even Zhang could sense the wrongness of. It took a moment to realise that what he was seeing was not quite Randal, it was a thing clean shaven and meticulously groomed.

With a sharp move this other Randal clenched his fist so hard it shattered the vision.

Ash managed to only just turn his head, gasping like a drowning man surfacing for air as reality snapped back in harshly.

Saorise’s Agent saw the Mavvar pointing her gun, all too eager and too fast in their response to a perceived threat.

Zhang took a step back, pulling at his abilities until he slipped entirely from sight.

Ash managed considerably less with his warning of what was to happen, fast enough only to reach out and knock the end of the Agents gun.

The first bullet flew with a different direction that it had the first time the Golgotha blooded had seen it, skimming Randals arm enough to draw blood. In an instant this snapped the Mavvar pack into action.

Randal lashed out toward the pointed gun on his side, half knowing what was going to happen. He almost caught her wrist before she retaliated. Like Ash he only managed to pull the shot off course as she squeezed the trigger.

Reality trembled ever so imperceptibly, all Golgotha present and a few within the city limits wincing collectively as a shrill shriek of a discordant note rang out across the wound tight strings. Randal felt his teeth rattle, not quite catching it, but not unaware of it either.

Ash staggered backwards as if punched, pain blinding their sight white hot. In the haze that followed they fell against Heath, clutching at his jacket as they caught themselves.

There was blood splattered across Heaths face, quite at home alongside the look of distant horror. As if only half there he wondered if Heath had been hurt, there was certainly too much blood for it to be all his and have him be still upright.

Heath was gawking at him as Ash just swayed on the spot, knuckles stretched white as he held onto him even as his legs grew shaky. Heath finally reached out tentatively as if afraid he might hurt them, blind and deaf to the chaos.

A bullet landed next to them, a whisky glass exploding into perfectly diamond shaped razor shards.

Randal charged, pushing Ash hard enough to throw him back across the bar top, Heath caught up with him. They landed awkwardly, otherwise unhurt as they took shelter. Solid wood would be enough to protect them, a tactical choice made decades prior by a much wiser Iscari who had long since left the city.

Ash’s fingers grew noticeably cold, joints suddenly stiff and heavy as pain radiated through him. Hunger.

He forced himself past it, turning to Heath who had curled up too small and had not once blinked, staring at Ash. He tried to ask if they were fine when the wound finally caught up. He grasped at his throat as only a gurgling noise came forth where the bullet had torn through.

There was a tightness almost worse than the pain, skin and sinew stretched taut to snapping point as the wound pulled itself closed as if sloppily glued back together. He had imagined their healing to be a smooth thing, bone then muscle, then meat, then skin, ordered and logical. Instead the truth was more like tumours sprouting and spreading until they had formed and filled the gap with something close enough to what had once been there. Something in his Golgotha blood told him he ought to mourn the loss, a bullet shaped piece of him that had once been human now permanently replaced with something that had always been vampire.

Heavy boots landed right next to them, Heath flinching away.

Randal crouched low, his grin flickering like tv static to reveal concern and fear before shuddering back. In the moment it did Ash caught a glimpse of something else; a thin, pleased smile on the clean shaven face of the Vandal Prince. Something in that last vision was repulsive, Ash fighting back the urge to recoil when Randal put a comforting hand to his shoulder.

“You alive under there?” Randal had his knife hanging limply in his grip, looking far too small in his massive hands.

“No, but its been like that for a while now.” His voice came out wrong, scratchy and hoarse from where the internal parts were still not quite in the right shape.

Ash took Randal’s hand off of his shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, almost failing to resist the thought that he might lay a kiss to his knuckles.

“Close enough. Don’t die, I’m getting my guys out of here now.”

There was a call to pull back, the response more like the howling of wolves than words. A thundering of heavy steps followed, and then the slamming of an almost destroyed door. A heavy silence fell.

Zhang’s head appeared over the edge of the bar, hanging upside down. For a short moment he just peered owlishly into the relative safety Heath and Ash had found. He put on a very deliberate frown, holding his hat on as he hung there.

“I do believe that this meeting is over. If you cannot even guarantee the safety of a single negotiation then I cannot in good faith accept you are able to keep to the terms you offer. Good evening to you both.” He vanished instantly with a faint sound like conspiratorial whispering.

Heath stood, offering his hand to Ash to help him up. He took a cloth from the bar top, trying to wipe the blood from his face and just smearing it more. His mouth burned from what little of the spray had caught him mid gasp, the taste rancid and vile.

“That went well.” Ash surveyed it all with only a mild frown, too absorbed in his own internal conflict. He was touching where the wound to his throat had been, the skin still thin feeling and wrong.

“You should go.” Heath leaned in close. “Go after them, I’ll cover for you.”

“What do you mea...”

“I know. I don’t hold it against you, just get back before she realises.” Heath had a look to him of such intensity.

“Thank you.” Ash pulled him in for a too tight hug before leaving at speed, the dark dancing around him as he touched the night air and vanished.

Heath looked to the smashed tables and broken chairs, a laugh racking his body that threatened to break into a sob. With an effort of will he took ahold of it all and simply let it pass, calmness washing over him.

He had seen the way Ash looked at Randal and knew he had made his choice. They were a Rebel wearing the Coven colours for as long as they had to. He could sympathise. It was time he made the choice he had been putting off for too long. He had to take his stand for what he really believed in. He was going to side with the Dark Father.

Heath for the first time in too long smiled sincerely, certainty making him bolder than he though he ever would be. There was no guile, no audience he desired to please with his smile, just a moment of deep clarity as the curtains to his stage finally rose and he could see the truth beyond it. So lost in that moment he entirely missed the bile bitter taste of Gol blood turning as sweet as nectar and honey wine upon his tongue.

He finally put down the wine flute he had been cleaning and made an effort to sweep away the broken glass. In each piece there was reflected a different future, all as glittering and bright as the light and insight newly shining behind his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we really start to see this story go off the canon rails, first stop GolgothaBlood!Heath.


	8. The Speech

The door opened, a few more Mavvar padding in in motorbike leathers and heavy denims, shaking sand from their boots.

The approach to the beach house had been heavy with footprints in all directions even so early into the night, forming something that almost became a swirling fractal mandala when he let its impressions gently glide over him. There had not been so many in other nights, either more followers joining the cause or those already loyal showing themselves more readily. Ash did not know which was true and had chosen not to ask so that he could not be coaxed into revealing.

“I always feel woefully overdressed when I’m here.” Ash had once found the price of the suit he was wearing in a catalogue. He now felt considerably worse about dragging it through sand and sewer.

That heart stopping expense was before the custom tailoring to his ungenerously narrow frame and without the accommodations made for various types of gun and blade. Now that he was aware that it could conceal some smaller swords the idea was terribly tempting, thwarted only by the fact the few teachers left in the Coven were centuries old and entirely unwilling to bother imparting knowledge to a barely dead rookie that might not survive the year. The rest that could have taught him in better times had all been the stranger sort of Golgotha, and had all marked themselves with grave dirt kneeling before golden yellow eyes.

“There’s a few Mavvar that dress up fancy.” Randal just shrugged, comfortably lounged across the entire sofa and idly watching the tiny TV without any real focus. “Not everyone's a fighter, some people put that anger in us to use elsewhere. Dig deep enough and you’ll find us everywhere there’s powerful assholes trying to put down good people, and not always throwing punches too.”

“Bricks to make a stone wall, and walking in the shadow of a priest, a doctor and a king.” Ash stared up at the cracked paint of the ceiling, the visions oddly languid and easy that night. The ever present music too seemed pleasant, like guitar strumming heard from far away.

“I don't get why you don't just swap clothes.” Randal was now focused solely on him, the TV completely ignored. “If it bothers you, fix it.”

“Where do I keep them? My room in the tower is secure to nobody, so I have nothing but what I’m given and allowed.” His room always felt slightly off when he returned, beyond the fresh sheets and sometimes that furniture polish smell of vanilla and chemical. There was a ripple in it, a wake left by intense feelings of scrutiny or searching, every object too exact in being where they had been and were supposed to be.

“Then I’ll give you something, just for tonight.” Randal sat upright, pulling his shirt up over his head and bundling it into a ball to throw at Ash. “But you’ve got to get yourself something, anything. I’ll clear a drawer here so its safe if you don’t want Queen Bitch going through your collection of designer g-strings.”

“This is literally the shirt off your back.” Ash chose to ignore the g-string comment as he caught the bundle, never to confess that it had been lime green and worn only once back when he had a pulse and a certain deep itch that needed a big strong man to deep scratch.

“I’m in a giving mood. Don’t question it.” Randal swung about until he was sitting upright, watching with just a little too much intensity.

Ash always worried that Randal could see his thoughts, or at least guess them with some near accuracy. Mavvar had an instinct to them that at times seemed to be cousin to the insight, Randal gifted in it seemingly more so than any other Ash had encountered.

“I appreciate it.” He unfolded it, flickers of half there memories woven into the almost bare threads. It was something well worn, soaked in admiration and image until it bleached from black to white in the brightness of fames spotlight.

He unbuttoned his jacket and wriggled out of it, dropping it to the floor with a heavy thud of concealed weaponry. He quickly found that Randal’s t-shirt was large enough that it felt more like a flowing robe on his smaller frame.

He had to wonder it was indeed a robe did that now make him a priest in his worshipping, kneeling at the altar of the Vandal Prince amongst the Mavvar with hands raised in prayer for him to guide them. Down that path the visions grew obscure and hungry, the end point one of red stars and screaming audiences. He had no desire to follow those visions, pulling himself back having lost only a few seconds.

“Just make sure you don’t wander off with it. I like to keep what’s mine close.” Randal spoke with a slight degree more ferocity than was due, his presence alone wrapping around Ash as if to grasp him.

“So are you going to just lay about without for the night?” He had no complaint other than the temptation of the forbidden.

“I could get another one on, but its nice to go without sometimes and I’ve got no shame left. I used to go out and catch the sun a lot, way back before I was turned.” Randal seemed oddly wistful in that moment for someone who denounced their humanity at every given opportunity.

“I can see that.” Ash nodded toward him, bare and plain to see that his skin was still sun kissed golden. He had now also confirmed that it didn’t stop at his arms and neck like Ash had initially thought. “All of you? Or will you be hiding a tan line forever somewhere more delicate?”

Randal gave him a smile that had too much sharp tooth and a certain brightly shining wickedness behind the eyes.

He stood up, slowly, flicking his belt open with a single practised movement. He hooked his thumb into the waist at his right hip and lowering just that side down until Ash was wholly certain that there was no tan line to be found.

“That answer your question?” All too quickly he pulled it back up, fastening his belt before dropping heavily back onto the sofa in almost the exact same lax position he had been earlier.

“And others too.” He was now armed with the knowledge that Randal didn't wear any underwear.

If he was not a dead thing he was quite certain the lust would have already overwhelmed him, made his words garbled more so than even Golgotha gifts could muster. Death had a sparse few mercies, each precious.

Randal was smirking now, a hint of cruelty without malice to him as rolled both his shoulders and stretched until his joints made an audible pop. He was entirely aware that Ash was staring, tracing ever contour and dip of his exposed skin, but he chose to make no comment. He was not overly vain even though he had been turned during a time where he was quite impressively maintained, but he was always happy for the attention when it was from that one Gol that saw right through the haze of status and celebrity and still chose to spend time with him.

Ash knew that there was a memory there of a mortal Randal wearing nothing but blue sky and body lotion, laid out on warm sands. He also knew not to reach for it, a certainty to him that sunlight remembered still carried fire and death with it.

It was almost worth it, caution overruled at least until the tips of his fingers lit up with the first flash of embers.

If Randal had felt or somehow known what Ash was attempting he gave no obvious sign, but he did roll over onto his side in what could have been the pose from the airbrush perfect front cover of the sort of magazines that came wrapped in brown paper and sold in the sort of place Markus ran. Ash had little time to appreciate it with a mouth full of smouldering fingers and the unfortunate discovery that the numbing trait of vampire saliva did not work on self.

There was a ringing sound wholly outside his head, one of the Mavvar in the tiny and often disused kitchen picking up the phone.

“It’s for you.” They said after a moment, waving it toward Randal.

“Is it my order of extra large magnums?” He winked at Ash. “The guns I mean, you know what us guys with big hands are like. Back in a sec, don’t miss me too hard.”

He was upright lightning fast, weaving through the thickly assembled vampires with familiar ease.

It was Jack that filled the gap, a question circling him like a fly to an open wound or a bee to a red rose. He took no seat, simply standing where he would cast Ash into shadow.

“Hey.” Jack was not going to leave him alone without a conversation, and while Ash desired Randal’s company more he would not turn down another for a while.

“Hello.” Ash put on his polite face. Something about Jack made him unsettled but refused to be known. Something to his presence always felt slightly wrong, like he was just waiting for something like an opportunity. The visions fixated on him too, even in their idle mood there was half there impressions of red roses and blood wet knives in his hands.

“I just wanted to apologise, about the garage. We never got to speak about it and I’m sorry. It’s just I’m kinda new and was just trying to throw my weight around like Randal tells me I should.” He shuffled from foot to foot, either a nervous human habit yet to be shed or a well performed imitation of one.

“The first step to not being an asshole is to admit you have a problem. The second is to attend weekly assholes anonymous meetings.” Ash spoke with a tone of dire seriousness or absolutely the opposite intentions.

“I cant tell if your fucking with me or not.” Jack retreated into his hood ever so slightly.

“Its a common theme.” Ash smiled saccharine sweetly, taking a breath and trying to be just a little bit serious. “I get it, you’re fresh like me and it isn't easy.”

“Its been a year, maybe. Stopped counting the days a while ago.” Jack just shrugged with the quiet acceptance that there was nothing to be done about what he had been made into.

“Same.” Ash should have known the exact date he died and found he couldn't recall it, or indeed how long it had been. It must have been months, could have been days or years. Time just seemed to run through the dead leaving no true impression.

“I heard you never met the guy who turned you. Just got grabbed and thrown right in the deep end. I get that, mine wasn't much better.” Jack appeared to be trying sympathy without being well equipped for it.

“A story there you want to tell?”

“Trade you mine for yours.”

“There was always supposed to be a turning that night. I was exactly where they should have been, a background actor in another's production, but somehow both the Iscari and the man never arrived. It was a Golgotha that found me, nobody that the Coven could rightly identify. I was taken to Saorise but I wasn’t the one she wanted.” Ash relayed what he knew, the gaps in the story irritating him like a half closed wound. Saorise’s silence and his makers absence told as much.

He knew his blood was different. He could feel the Golgotha native to the city were slightly apart from him, far cousins rather than close siblings. Zhang and Markus felt the same in a different way, a hint of old London smog and a deliberate absence of anything telling. Where many could claim a lineage with pride, direct lines of blood ancestry to great men and women, Ash could only claim himself an orphan.

“That’s rough.” Jack didn't know quite how to respond other than to uphold his end of the deal. “Mine was my dealer. Kept trying to get me hooked on hard stuff, I think he got off on watching people die from the shit he was selling. I kept refusing though, all I wanted was a bit of pot every couple weekends. He got sick of it and broke every bone in my body, forced me to drink from him and left me in a dark place to figure it out. He really wanted me to suffer. Couple nights later he wandered into Iscari territory and got what was coming to him.”

“I was going to offer to help you put a bullet or ten into him, but fate got him first. Sorry you got robbed of your revenge.” Ash was certain Randal would happily agree to helping if he was the one asking.

“You’re pretty Mavvar for a Gol, anyone ever tell you that?” Jack let a laugh free, only a little humour breaking through the air of old regrets about him.

“Not quite in that order, its usually ‘that pretty Gol’ mostly as a compliment. And I do love a good compliment.”

“The Mavvar don't care much how pretty you are, if you get my meaning.” Jack folded his arms over his chest, his smile still thin but lightening up.

“I do, loud and proud. And I love you all for it.”

“I think there might be one you love a whole lot more, don’t think its not noticed. Find some happiness if you can, don’t let it hurt if you can’t.”

“Good advice.”

“I was going to ask you some other stuff, but I think I know the answer now. Good luck, and don't do anything Randal wouldn't do.”

“Is that your catchphrase now?” Ash raised an eyebrow, at little more at ease

“Might just be.” Jack gave a mock salute and slipped into the crowd.

Ash tuned out the world and focused only on the noise, inside and out. The music was still faint and pleasant, but there was a few opening notes like a first tentative plucked strings of a grand performance. From the Mavvar their chatter grew brisk and fierce, a harshness cutting through it all.

“Tell them.” A booming demand. “Tell them how we’re gonna do it. How were gonna burn the fucking Iscari tower to the ground.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck ‘em”

“Get rid of all the bastards, we don’t need them ruining our city.” That one was Marla.

“They dare hurt any of mine and I’ll put ‘em back down under the dirt where they belong.” The snarled threat from Joaquina was the loudest and the most powerful, a hint of the age of her blood trembling beneath.

“We’re going to win, no doubt, no fear.” Marla again, but the words were translated from Ziggy beside her.

“Kill them all, Randal’s going to tear Saorise and her fucking order to pieces.”

“Tell us.”

“Yeah Randal.”

Randal had tried to pass through the crowd, each step forward fought through grabbing hands.

It was Jack that grabbed a chair, sliding it across the floor until it came crashing to a halt again Randal’s shins. It stopped him in his advance, the crowd calling for his wisdom now closing him in entirely.

With a sigh of irritation he steeled himself, shoulders squared and a fire burning behind his eyes. He stepped up onto the chair, towering above the masses with his arms held high.

They started chanting his name, over and over, Ash finally opening his eyes to see if this was all just another vision of that awful dead end of screaming and red stars that seemed to almost haunt him on the furthest edge of the insight. It was sadly not.

The cries of adoration became as light, circling about his head like a martyrs halo. Ash knew better than to kneel, to bow, but it was a beautiful thing that demanded his worship.

Randal gave a mighty roar, matched in its intensity by the Mavvar. It made Ash suddenly very aware just how different he was, the Mavvar all falling into line as wolves showing their bellies and throats. He felt no such compulsion to obey their pecking order, and reflected in all but Randal he saw a strange sort of awareness that he was not of them.

The howling died as Randal moved to speak, but the noise didn't. The music was screaming now, so loud Ash thought his skull might shatter, made worse by the silence of anticipation that filled the room. Few could be as still or quiet as the dead. Ash resisted the urge to clutch at his head, to not let himself be seen as the madman his blood was so eager for him to be.

A few short miles away Zhang faltered in the words that had been so easy before, finding some distant cobweb of connection in the blood straining to dump its warning to any that might listen. He could offer nothing, not even sympathy, no matter how much he wanted to.

“This city is ready for a change.” Randal voice was barely a low rumble, but it carried so easily and so well.

There was a presence Ash could not rightly identify. He thought he knew the feeling as Iscari, like the pressure of their will trying to dominate his mind but without the hammer blow weight behind it. It was a subtle nudge, unfocused but certainly powerful.

“This war has been grinding us down, night after night, and still we fight. They can’t put us down and they never will. Soon we’ll be the ones to rise.”

He pulled on any defences he could muster to stop it, searching for the source. Saorise had insisted he experience it first hand so that even if he could not quite resist its influence completely it would be enough to rightly identify that he had been compromised after the fact. It had ended with him suddenly aware he was leaning out of the window looking at the street far below, with a warning from the Regent to do better next time.

“We started this war to bring down the Coven, but now the Gols that ran to the fucking graveyard are out to get us too. They’re trying to turn our war into their chance to be the same fucking tyrants, and we won’t stand for it.”

Ash knew that those caught without warning would have no such chance to resist.

“We got proof that this isn't a war of blood and house, its about truth. We’ve got to open their eyes to the lie that we need a Regent or a Dark Father commanding our destiny, and when the Gols and Iscari see their order has been crushing them too we’ve got to stand with them to fight the real enemy. We’re going to take this city and save them all. And if they won’t stand for the truth then they have to go.”

He tried to reach out to the gathered crowd, the flames of the Mavvar all he could grip. He could not pin down the Iscari, and worryingly there was a flickering of the sort of dark the Golgotha carried just there under the bright light, his first worry that he was somehow chasing his own shadow.

“They think we need their rules. They pay for loyalty with their fucking breadcrumbs, promises of a better tomorrow that they will never deliver. They made hope a weapon to keep us down, pray for tomorrow to make today bearable, every betrayal to keep them in power a sacrifice that just had to be made, but we see what they’re doing. And we reject it.”

He could not find them, and the pain of the noise and the strain of using the insight so deliberately was quickly becoming unbearable.

“We are not human, we are the conquerors of death itself. And if Death couldn’t make us bow what makes that bitch in a tin crown thing she can do it?”

Ash pulled back entirely, raising up every mental wall he could muster. All he wanted was to fight, to see the Iscari tower burn if only to please Randal, the urge to let that need rule him so brilliantly tempting and bright.

The Mavvar too looked to Randal with lust, for violence as much as for flesh. Every word brought them closer to the edge of a frenzy, begging for the release only bloodshed could provide.

“Fuck their rules, fuck their guilt, fuck all of them for trying to stop us being who we are.” Randal threw up his arms again, and through a parting in the crowd made eye contact with Ash. There was a golden light behind his eyes, and looking into it made Ash suddenly so terribly aware of that far future horror and with it he found the strength to fight on.

“Fuck the fear, the shame, the pain, the money, the politics, the religion, the dogma. We are better than that. We will be better than that.” With those last shouted words he dropped from his raised platform, landing heavily enough that it sent a tremor through the crowd and with it shattered the atmosphere.

The room grew quiet, Ash found his thoughts suddenly clear, and the murmur of old conversation returned but now with an edge of excitement. Randal’s words were on the lips of all the present, and by the end of the night would be preached to every corner of the city.

The crowd dispersed soon after, leaving only Randal and Ash.

Jack was the last out, promising Ash that they would find time for him when they could. He seemed so invigorated by what had happened, a pleased glow to him. The roses he had been adorned with earlier had now bloomed.

Randal fell onto the couch the moment the last of the Mavvar was gone. Where he had seemed so full of life only a minute before he now seemed to be drained, used up entirely. He just stared out into the infinite, a pen finding its way into his hands as he scribbled idly on the back of his bandages.

Even now they were not too far, the sound of bike engines revving and screams of joy were a constant companion.

He seemed in no hurry to voice whatever thoughts were taking their time to be formed.

“You okay?” It was softly spoken, no trace of his earlier fervour. “I’m worried that was too much for you. I don’t want to scare you off.”

Ash thought to voice what he had witnessed and decided against it. He had no proof, yet, but now that he knew he could search. There was another amongst the Mavvar that didn’t belong, and they likely had no idea they had been almost discovered.

“I will be.” Ash admitted it after a moment to consider. “The crown weighs heavy on you.”

“I’m not their fucking king.” He said it without tone, giving a divisive snort that almost sounded like a laugh.

“I don't think they know that.”

“Figured.” Randal turned to look at him. “Can I tell you something? And it can’t go further than us.”

“Only if you need to tell me, I want no secrets that could hurt you.”

“You couldn't hurt me, and I’ve got no secrets left they don't already know.” Randal spoke as if it was truth, and it certainly felt like the truth in how it reflected in him, but Ash knew instantly it was lie.

“Then I’ll listen.”

“I worry about what’s going to happen to Saorise.”

Ash stayed silent as if expecting more, something that might break the confusion.

“I struggle to understand.”

“Don't get me wrong I can’t stand the bitch, but that doesn’t mean I want her dead either. She cares about us all, even us rebels, in her own fucked up way. The only problem is she’s a shit mother, and her idea of love is to smother us all in the crib.”

“I can understand that. She gave me a chance when rightly I should be dead, and she let me choose you even though its probably going to come back and bite her.”

“I don't want her dead, I don’t want anybody to die for this stupid fucking war. But people are going to die, and I hate that I can’t change that.” He seemed so lost in that moment, like that admission was a wound that had been open for some time.

“I’m trying too. The Iscari are starting to listen, I think I might even be getting through to some of them. Or they’re just humouring me, hard to tell sometimes.”

“I can believe that. You’ve got a talent for convincing people.” Randal smiled proudly at him. “But it might not do any good. There’s voices on both sides that want bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed, and nothing I say seems to put them off that path.”

Saorise had stated almost exactly as much during one of the few private talks they had had.

“They love you.” It was a single word different, even without the ‘I’ it still held its sincerity. “Find the ones that’ll listen and keep them close.”

“I don’t want to do that. I want them to be able to do this without me. I’m not a leader, I’m just their voice, or at least I was. I don’t know any more. I think I hate them sometimes, for not being strong enough to stand on their own.” Randal’s voice almost cracked, and in that crack was something awful asking to be let out.

“You love them, deeply, even for all of their flaws. If they won’t live for themselves let them live for each other. Freedom isn't going it alone, it’s always knowing you have somewhere to come back to when you fall.”

“From the mouth of babes.” Randal just shook his head. Ash resisted the urge to make fun of being called ‘babe’, but certainly filed it away for later use.

“I won’t force your hand, but I think a little support is what you need. Not to brood in the dark like a mother hen that’s lost her eggs.”

“I am not a mother hen.” Randal squared his shoulders like a bird hackling its feathers.

“Go tend to them, fledge to feather, not as messiah or prophet but as one of the many. See them right and they’ll return it.” Ash held up a discarded helmet, fully face covering, a poor disguise but perhaps enough to walk amongst them.

“I don’t know who loves them more, me or you?” His chuckle was almost sincere.

“Lets find out together.” Ash offered his hand, Randal still lying on his back. “I’ve always wanted to go on the back of one of those bikes, but there’s nobody I’d trust more not to crash than you.”

For a long moment Randal just studied him, first for deception or guile, then for any hint of blind adoration. He found nothing but actual concern, and with it a wash a relief flowed through him that took the slightest edge from his low mood.

Randal took his offered hand, almost tearing Ash’s arm from its socket pulling himself upright. Without a word he wrapped Ash in a gentle hug, almost draping himself over him.

“I think I’ll need my t-shirt back.” Randal muttered against his collarbone. “And I hope you don't mind smelling of diesel, I’m the only one that doesn't run on gasoline around here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to the various people reading this, those that have liked or reblogged from tumblr, and everyone here from both the Argent Games discords.


	9. The Hunters

The phone rang, dumping Ash out of a pleasant dream he could not quite recall with a metallic sound. He fumbled for the receiver, stretching the cord under the covers of his bed.

“Hello?” If it wasn’t for the chance Saorise was the one calling ‘go fuck yourself’ might have been his greeting to whoever woke him up.

She had still not fully acknowledged the work he had done in the Abattoir, Alleusha agreeing to feed the Iscari information in exchange for just a bite or two every few weeks. There was something more there, a worrying depth to her he could not scry even with great effort. He had encountered few vampires that knew how to raise barriers against Golgotha intrusion, rarer still a mortal that could do it so effortlessly.

Saorise was presently away on business and had left him a rather short note in handwriting suspiciously not hers along with an envelope full of money to do with as he saw fit. Ash would have to thank the Agent for his kindness.

“Ash?”

“Randal, how the hell did you get the hotel to connect you?” He sat up, suddenly very aware and attentive.

Randal gave a cough as if clearing his throat.

“Dear traveller that's a secret best not told.” The voice was most certainly Markus.

“What?”

“Still Randal, I just have many hidden talents.” He still sounded like Markus, and Ash was starting to doubt his sanity more than his usual amount.

“I honestly don’t know if this is actually you, or Markus fucking with me.” Ash tried to listen behind the words, finding nothing but the electric buzz of the phone line without near presence.

“We’re probably being wire tapped, so hello to the Iscari assholes currently listening I’m just here to thank Ash for helping spray paint ‘fuck the queen bitch’ on the side of Saorise’s favourite car last night.” His laugh was booming and heavy, shattering any chance of it being Markus and likely the eardrums of any eavesdroppers on the line.

“Can you not get me in trouble with the Coven please?” Ash looked toward the door, pushing his senses a little to feel for any Iscari marching down the hall with a sharpened stake and a faxed copy of a hastily scrawled edict from the Regent.

“I think what I’m asking will be fine, even with the war. Call this a mission to benefit us all regardless of who you side with. And a chance for you to get out of that hotel and have a little fun maybe.”

“I’m interested.” Ash was certain Randal could suggest near anything and he’d agree.

“Because its me asking or because you’re bored?” Randal chuckled at how well he had gotten to know Ash, a little too well in some cases.

“I’ll leave that to you to figure out.”

“We got hunters, and that's bad for us all. We’re looking to drive them off, thought you might want some first hand experience so if they ever get the drop on you then you’re not totally unprepared.”

“Hunters as in holy water and garlic?”

“More like big guns and bad life choices these days, but you get the idea. I won’t sugar coat this, these guys have gotten smart and are picking off lone stragglers and small groups. They’re getting bold, we’ve had injuries and…” Randal paused briefly to collect himself. “...losses. Some good people have been taken down by them. This might be dangerous and I won’t hold it against you if this isn't what you’re comfortable with, but I want you here with me for this.”

“I’m in.” Ash didn't hesitate.

“See you at the beach house then.” His grin could be heard, Ash seeing his image bright in his mind with all the beaming pride of it.

“Should I bring a shotgun?”

“You don't have a shotgun.”

“I can get one.” His voice lowered to something between seductive and conspiratorial. He knew where the Iscari stored their weapons, and had seen the rooms lock combination once in a dream.

“Pass on that, we’re doing this quietly and you shouldn't need to get your hand dirty unless you really want to. I’ll call it a good idea but not how we’re doing this. Just get here quick and don’t wear anything that might get stained, these things tend to get messy.”

“See you soon.”

“Never soon enough.” Randal said it lower, in almost a husky growl, before putting down the phone and leaving Ash with only dial tone and a strangely warm feeling.

* * *

The air carried the anticipation, pressure building like a storm front. As Ash approached the beach house there was a noticeable swell of vampires, all in their own little groups and each without exception had a madness in their eyes entirely Mavvar.

Ash knew by reputation the Mavvar were capable of and relished violence, everything of their nature circled it in some way or another. It was only now he could see it completely plain and unhidden.

Randal was out the front of his home, his inner circle hunched around him conspiratorially. Randal felt him first, locking eyes with him from quite some distance and watching him approach. The rest followed his eyes and his smile, waving Ash into their group with welcoming warmth and without a word spoken.

“Glad you could make it, runt.” Joaquina gave him a hearty pat on the back, knocking Ziggy back a little with her hip to make a little more room as to not crowd them.

“Will you be joining us hunting hunters dearest grandmama? You might miss Jeopardy, and your evening constitutional of pills and prune juice.” Ash put a hand to his chest with a theatrically scandalised gasp.

“Cheeky little shit.” She said it with a laugh, looking to Randal. “Glad you kept this one close.”

Ziggy spoke something with his hands rather than having Marla translate, a flickering of shapes that Ash had never learned but could insinuate from how their meaning reflected in the others.

‘ _All here? We shouldn’t have to wait forever just for your_...’ The last word was obscured, but Ash felt that it meant him.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get a move on.” Randal rolled his eyes, returning his signing with only one of his own; a middle finger steadfastly raised. “Plans simple, we’re sending a bunch of guys ahead to set up an ambush, we just got to lure them into it. Don’t go anywhere alone, keep at least one other group within sight at all times, don’t wander outside the path you’ve been given. Otherwise do what you have to.”

“Can the kid cut it for this? No offence.” Marla gave him an appraising look, once up and down. Strength for the dead had little to do with how they’d been as a mortal, but the Golgotha were known for their powers rather than their raw might.

“Some taken.” Ash mimicked Randals raised middle finger, though he stuck his tongue out too.

“We all know those witch bloods can do terrible things. Show us you’re scary, that you can strike fear into their hearts.” Joaquina gave him a nudge.

“Taxes, your mother in law, erectile dysfunction.” Ash wiggled his fingers dramatically, but he did allow just a little of the power to bleed into his words.

There was a shiver of dissonance from almost all assembled, a creeping dread and an implicit threat that did not fit the words he had spoken.

Only Randal seemed utterly unmoved, giving him a disappointed shake of his head.

“Fucking Gols.” Each time he said that phrase it became a little less exasperated and a little more fond. Ash eagerly awaited the day it became a term of endearment.

Laughter bubbled up in the group, a familiarity and ease at Ash’s presence.

Ziggy signed something short and explicit that Ash missed entirely. Randal pointedly ignored it even as Joaquina and Marla gave him a very knowing look.

“You three have your own groups to lead, and you’ll be going at the front. I trust you guys to keep the more rowdy ones in line, at least until they can let loose. I’ll be taking Ash with me in the rear.”

Ash bit his tongue to avoid saying anything when the fruit was so low hanging and the innuendo so easy.

“Got it.” Nobody questioned Ash being with him.

“What are waiting for, a fucking invitation?” Randal raised his hands, gesturing to them all still waiting for an order. “Go. Lets show these fuckers you don’t mess with the Mavvar.”

They scattered quickly, their eager screams of joy muting quickly to something deathly silent and inhumanly focused. They were fast on their feet, fast enough they were little more than a blur of movement.

“You sure you’re ready for this? Even a single doubt and I’ll happily leave you here where its safe, no judgement.”

“I made my decision by being here. Now its your turn to stop doubting me.”

“Not doubting you, never would.” Randal grinned like a fool. “Lets go, by the time we walk into the city they should be ready for us.”

* * *

Ash had not expected such intensity from him. There was an unblinking focus to how he moved that felt distinctly inhuman, his usually heavy steps silent.

He had seen flashes of himself in the perspective of prey as he sank teeth into them, the deathly stillness they had to train themselves out of and the way they looked out at the world with an alien hunger. To see another predator so closely in that moment was uncanny. He knew in a distant way that they were monsters, but to know and to witness were a gulf apart. Randal seemed to be a coiled tight font of potential violence, a slight provocation enough for him to tear a man apart with his claws and teeth.

Ash couldn't help but find him beautiful in that moment in a way he never would have as a human.

It had gone unspoken that they should be vigilant for anyone strange or out of place, but at 1am in Santa Monica that was everyone still roaming the streets.

“Them.” Randal spoke tonelessly, watching a group that had just turned the corner onto their street. They moved with purpose at a quick march, too regimented to be anything else.

One of the hunters froze, turning to see what had prickled his well tuned sense of paranoia.

Randal grabbed Ash by the hips, pushing him back against the low wall and leaning in close in what from the outside would seem to be a drunk couple about to try earning themselves a public indecency fine.

“Laugh like I’m flirting and then tell me if they’re still watching us.” Randal put his head to Ash’s shoulder, nuzzling into his neck, his hands roaming up his torso.

“Still looking.” Ash shot a quick glance, reaching around him and taking two fistfuls of Randal’s t-shirt.

The hunter watched them, shaking his head and making a comment to his companions. The deception seemed to work, the hunters returning to following the Mavvar trail.

“And now?” Randal pressed his forehead to his, lips dangerously close.

“I think we fooled them.” Ash wasn't looking, they could have been only a pace away waving a crucifix at him and he would not have noticed.

“Give it a moment for them to move on then we follow again. Hopefully the rest of our guys are ready to drop this ambush on them.” Randal spoke it barely above a whisper, and though his hands had stopped roaming they had not been pulled back.

Randal counted down in his head, parting reluctantly once hopefully enough time had passed. His expression was stony and focused, unblinkingly watching the way the hunters had gone like a hawk ready to swoop in.

Ash straightened his clothing, looking anywhere but at him. He feared his disappointment would as outwardly obvious as it felt inwardly.

The found the alley they had gone down, empty of both hunters or vampires.

Ash reached out, trying to find and count their presence and movements. The sensation was impossible to describe other than being pain, a blinding flash of heat searing his insight and scattering his connection to the dark below.

“There’s more magic in this world than just what we can do.” Randal warned him, something of it bleeding over to him.

Ash managed to steady himself, hearing a shout from back the way they had came as brickwork exploded to dust too close to his head. Randal grabbed him, pulling him away from danger at a run.

“They should have been here.” Randal knew full well the Mavvar were terribly easy to distract and terribly hard to coordinate.

They ducked down two alleyways, faster than the humans by a great deal, Randal finally pulling him into a narrow doorway when it became clear that no path forward would not put them face to face with danger. He held him close to take less space, one arm protectively around him with a hand to his mouth so it was clear he should not make a single sound.

The hunters drew near, fanning out to find them. There was a harsh crackle of static, orders and confirmations passing between them.

“Can’t have gone far. Remember these are heavy hitters, don't approach like you would with ghosts or draculas. Be ready for a fight and don’t let them close in on you, they’re stronger than the others.” One of them wore a red mark on his armour to distinguish his seniority over the rest, a poor substitute for the knightly heraldry worn upon tabard and tilt shield.

Ash felt Randal reach behind his back, unsheathing his knife from its holster slowly. It was pressed against his hand, a clear instruction to take it.

“Check all the hiding spots, guns up.”

One of the hunters stepped barely an arms reach away from them. Randal tensed as if ready to lunge and stopped when Ash pushed against him telling him to stop.

Colour bled from the world, a faint whispering coming from seemingly everywhere.

The hunter looked right at them, through them, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Nothing.”

“Fuck. Meet up with gamma and epsilon, should have rounded all the bloodsuckers up by now.” With a hand signal the hunters closed ranks, moving out at speed.

The bubble of unreality cracked and what little colour the night had surged back in.

With his arms still tightly around him Ash looked up to meet that intense stare. Randal had always seemed so fearless, but in those moments he was more than ready to give Ash his only weapon and throw himself head first into danger to protect him. Ash could feel the fear in him, reflected so brightly it could not be ignored. He didn't fear death, he feared loss.

In that moment Ash thought how easy it would be to reach up, gently cupping his cheeks and pulling him down to plant a single sweet kiss to his lips.

It was only when he felt sharp stubble beneath his fingers and an iron strong grip pulling him in even closer did he realise he had actually done it.

When Ash finally opened his eyes he saw a warmth and relief from Randal that bubbled up around him and was intoxicating to just be near. It was a stark contrast to the cold chill of his lips and the absolute stillness of his body.

“We can talk about this later.” Randal gently pushed him back, taking his hand and bringing it up to his mouth so that he could plant a single kiss to his knuckle. “But right now we have to go save my pack because they can’t follow a fucking plan.”

“Just talk?” Ash raised an eyebrow, Randal just rolling his eyes at him.

“If I can help it, no.” Randal begrudgingly admitted. “But if we’re going to do this we’re doing it right. And there's a lot of stuff we need to be sure of, a lot of ground to cover.”

Randal started running after them, stopping at each corner to lean out and check.

They arrived at a point no different than any other, though by Randal’s increasingly volatile mood it was probably where the Mavvar were supposed to be.

“This isn’t right.” He closed his eyes and titled his head as if listening, pushing his senses outwards.

Ash matched him, trying to find the trail of raw emotion that always hung in the air where Mavvar had recently tread like the potential beneath a thunderstorm.

There was a sound like metal scrapping against metal, and then a flash like gunpowder.

“Oh no.”

“Fuck, can they not stick to a fucking plan just once?” Whatever Ash has sensed Randal must have heard or smelled too. “They’re in a parking garage, underground I think.”

How he’d worked that out by scent Ash could not fathom.

“This feels like an ambush.”

“All too aware, but we haven't got a choice. We don’t leave anybody behind.” Randal for just a moment seemed to focus on something in the far distance, a pinprick of light flashing behind his eyes.

It was three levels down the parking garage they found the hunters and Mavvar, arriving just as the bloodshed had stopped.

The Mavvar suffered torn clothing and slowly bleeding wounds. The hunters suffered.

There was a few far off screams from other deeper levels, cut short quickly and finally.

At the center of it all was Jack, his boot pressed firmly on the chest of a still living hunter.

“Please, just let me go. I’ll never hunt again.” He was scrambling to get free, unarmed and broken, barely able to muster the strength to fight.

“You’re right, you won’t hunt again.” Jack looked down at him, putting just a little more pressure on him.

“Every time we play catch and release these assholes always come back with more.” One of the Mavvar staggered forward, a grim sight to her as she was holding a large amount of her insides in with her hands as the gaping wound snapped shut in uneven jumps. “Just fucking kill him.”

“Please no, I promise, I promise.”

Jack raised his foot for a moment and then stomped down on his hand with a crunch like wet glass.

He howled in pain so hard his voice failed, just a whistling cry coming forth from then on.

“We need to know how they’re finding us.” Randal sounded oddly detached from it all, stooping low next to the hunter as if contemplating how best to extract that information.

Ash was the one who answered. He sat beside the hunter like a nurse comforting the dying, gently taking their head and turning so that he could see into their red raw eyes.

Ash could see a fancy hat and a too wide smile reflected in there, and the shadow of the Dark Father looming behind his actions. With a flourish a duffel back of weapons was presented, some witty comment Ash could only see and not hear getting no laughs. There was a way Zhang looked through the hunter that almost seemed like he knew Ash was watching through his memories.

With a deep breath and a thundering feeling in his chest Ash stood, one amongst many, in the tall room that smelled of sawdust as their leader made his speech. He appeared to believe himself a modern Van Helsing, a scholar and a holy warrior.

He could feel the knife ramming into the beasts heart as he caught the young Mavvar off guard. He had been sprayed with neat vodka, kicked out into their territory in clothing just the right sort of ragged to look the part of easy prey.

The chained beast screeched and swore as they kept it in a silver bared cell to test the recruits against. Its fangs had been removed, an ongoing problem when they grew back every third or fourth night.

He raised the iron sight, lining up the shot as he squeezed the trigger to a staccato boom of thunder and the whiff of gunsmoke, each one of those bastards falling back dead where they should have stayed.

The first time he lost one of his fellow hunters he had cried in his bunk for days. The first time he had killed a vampire, stabbing at the body over and over uncertain if it really was dead, his brother lying on the ground with his throat torn out, the blood soaking his clothes as he held his body and cried and cried and cried and Ash tried to pull back from the memories before they pulled him down too deep as he just clung to his brothers body and begged for him to come back, the way his brother had cared for him after their mother died, his mother in the hospital with a glass bottle feeding poison into her in the hopes it might cure her, Ash could not free himself as she made him promise not to do anything stupid with his life, Ash wanted to call for help as his brother just held his hand and promised everything would be right eventually.

He tore free, not a clean separation of minds in the slightest.

With a deep gasp of air he fell backward onto his rear, scrambling back when he realised he was surrounded by vampires. He reached for the gun near always on his hip but found no weapon, only an understanding that he had only ever worn one concealed inside his jacket and only in recent nights. With a shudder he forced the hunters memories back, exhaling without drawing another breath, slowly picking himself up off the ground.

There was a sinking feeling as he recognised the Mavvar who’s image he had seen reflected. They were at the beach house most nights, always laughing. Their absence had been a cause for concern and heartache.

“Are you okay?” Randal reached out, cut off as the pack surged forward to support Ash who seemed terribly shaky on their feet.

“Did you see something with your witch sight?” Joaquina was first in, speaking softly as she offered her arm to Ash to help steady himself. If it were not for the boot on the hunters head it would be a perfectly motherly image.

The hunter was gibbering, tears rolling down his face as he broke his nails digging at the concrete for escape. The Golgotha had opened the path both ways, the wash of memories passing like the tide and carrying back the horrors of unlife without the strength of will it imparted needed to survive such things. Mortals were not supposed to peek into the dark below.

“I saw the death of one of our own.” Ash spoke it without thinking, not even realising until much later just what he had meant by ‘our own’. It was two little words had tied him to the Mavvar rebellion when he had been almost certain it would be three.

Randal swore, kicking a stray bottle hard enough to shattered almost to dust.

Ash gently took Joaquina’s hand, giving it a soft squeeze to assure her he was alright before letting it go and turning to the hunter with his sharpened fangs on show.

He lifted them up, dragging them upright by the throat as they kicked and fought and cried out for help that wasn’t coming. Without softness nor care he sunk his teeth into their throat and bit down hard, not the delicate pricking of a feeding but the harsh drag of tooth through flesh and sinew.

The hunter gurgled and tried to fight them off, Ash catching both their arms and squeezing until he felt the bone stop resisting the pressure.

He drank far past the point of no return, first blood, then life, and then something much more precious stolen, only stopping when the hunter collapsed limply against him and gave not even a shadow of an impression on the other side of the veil. With a shove they fell backward, their skull cracking bloodlessly against the concrete and echoing a few too many times.

The ever present noise had screamed at him to stop the entire time, trying to urge him to take any other path but that one.

The swell of anger broke, the Mavvar now stood in a circle witness to something horrible. As one they all let it pass them by, filled with certainty that it had been a brutal necessity, one amongst many, a thing to be celebrated in its bravery.

With a cheer they surged forward with proud pats on the back and words of brotherhood that he had killed for them now and was trusted to do so again. A second rebirth, his first as a dead thing, another as a killer.

It was only outside in the night air that the high faded, understanding filling him as he felt the hunter unravel within him. He felt powerful, the dark below and the dark around him somewhat closer. The remorse was somehow dulled in a way that he knew was a loss, something vital and human in him now ever so slightly diminished.

“It’ll be okay.” Randal moved as if to pull him into a hug, deciding against it when the air around him grew prickly and sharp in warning.

“How do you know?” Ash spoke without tone, staring off up into the night sky at nothing, not even the insight.

“Live this life long enough and we all do it sooner or later. Or worse. It gets easier, and sometimes you can even believe it’s worth it.” Randal ignored the warnings and took the last step closer, holding open an arm in invitation.

The vision around Randal lingered too long. His mouth was soaked in blood, dripping and gory, the image not quite Randal and not quite the glimpsed Vandal Prince. Ash knew that he spoke from experience rather than sympathy, watching something like his own mistakes play out in another.

“The killing?” Reluctantly Ash stepped into his embrace, resting his forehead against his chest and just staring into the well worn print of his t-shirt.

“Drinking all the way down.” Randal was oddly still, none of the well practised fidgets and habits that made him appear mortal on show. “Its why the ancients are so powerful and so fucked up, in their time they could just sweep up a whole village and burn the evidence to the ground.”

“So if I want to be strong I have to kill?”

“Three ways to gain that sort of power. Age, murder, cannibalism. And I wouldn’t let Saorise know about this if you can avoid it, there's rules these days to stop us doing it. Way back when we could grab someone the world wouldn't miss. The Mavvar used to clean up the strays the gangs wouldn't notice immediately, the cut-throats and the rapists.”

“You tried to do good?” Ash looked up, still so terribly close to him.

“No. Don’t mistake it for some human sense of justice. Mavvar are hunters, apex predators, we liked our prey to have some fight to it.”

“Figures.”

“We aren't people, no matter how much we pretend to be. We’re beasts, all we do is eat and fuck and fight and sleep. Sometimes we can even be honest about it.”

“So where does that put us?”

“Together. If you still want me once this is all over.”

“What if I want you now?”

“We have a lot to discuss. I’m not who you think I am, I’ve done things, and being completely honest with you about it will take me some time. I want you more than anything, but I sometimes think you’re too pure for me. I’d just bring you down to my level and ruin you. So for now can we just do what feels right and save the words for later?”

“I’m not pure, not now, not after this.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“If you still want me then we can be fucked up together.” Ash let himself smile, finally looking up to meet Randal’s gaze.

“I think I might like that.” Randal ran his hand through his hair, Ash just relaxing into the touch. Nothing more was said, and soon they parted ways with a strange kind of understanding that this was not to be spoken of until its proper time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter could do with a few more revisions, but for now I'm happy enough with it. Likely later I'll come back to do that. I could have kept this sitting in my docs for a while longer but I'd like to keep moving forward. Editing needs time to forget, to go back in with fresh eyes, and I found it hard to do that for this chapter.
> 
> More deviations from canon now, and Ash starting to understand just what it means to be a vampire.


	10. The Climb

The wind was strong that night, throwing a fine mist of salt up into the air and scattering his insight a billion minor directions with every pattern and permutation of each drop. It hurt to perceive, an effort needed to keep himself anchored exactly in the present moment. It was getting steadily harder to fight those impulses, the visions now so vivid and truthful he almost didn't want to.

The Golgotha territories were all inland, Ash wondering if there was some minor truth to the myth of running water repelling vampires. Rain at least had the common decency to fall mostly downwards, comfortably predictable to see with the insight.

Ash entered the beach house after stopping for certainly too long to play with the cat that roamed amongst the vampires. He always loved how cats seemed just a little bit more on the other side, casting a wider wake in the dark below, and in turn cats seemed to adore the Golgotha that much more than even other vampires. He had to suppose they were creatures of the night, another minor myth to be proved, though cats did not sing quite as beautifully as a certain Irish poet had expected.

Ash had intended to find Randal and instead found mild disappointment. There was a cloud of words floating above the beach, a conversation with such weight to it that it echoed with potential and consequence from its future place.

At the centre of attention was Jack, and that alone was a strange thing. He was being unusually enthusiastic, surrounded by a pack of Mavvar that to Ash’s eyes wore collars of choking chains and snapped like feral dogs against their hold. A bad omen that took a little too long to fade. Even the passing omens had been brighter and harder to ignore since the hunter, perception reaching further edges where sense could not be found.

Jack sauntered up to him, his hood still worn close but a too wide smile on his mouth.

“I need a favour.” He was too much, too confident, enough that it shone through him like sunlight through rose red stained glass.

“Most people open with hello.” Ash made a wide, sweeping gesture, raising both eyebrows and projecting an air of humour. He hadn't deliberately meant to but it felt like he had channelled a little of Markus. His intention had just been to unsettle him as was the usual, a very strange thing that the impulse had been to wear the echo of that particular person.

Jack frowned as the others shifted ever so slightly. There was a flicker of something between all of those Mavvar excluding Jack, a prelude to violence.

With a barked laugh the one who seemed to be leading them let down a little of the tension, as one they leaned ever so slightly away from Jack and toward Ash.

The Mavvar social order was like a pack of wild dogs, a constantly shifting hierarchy that could be tipped by even the slightest of actions. The only constant was Randal and his inner circle at the top, no matter how loudly he protested it. Ash had found himself now a part of it, no longer truly the outsider.

“Hello.” Jack begrudgingly spoke and probably rolled his eyes doing so, lost so deep in his hood everything from the nostrils upward was constantly obscured.

“I almost dread to ask, but go on.” Ash rested against the back of the couch, scanning the room for either a drink or better company. Both were usually easily forthcoming, and the stark absence was almost painful.

“Could I borrow a few drops of your blood?” He asked as if it were a trivial thing, a cup of sugar from a polkadotted neighbour in a nightmare technicolour suburbia.

Ash took a theatrically deep breath, entirely redundant after a now not so recent incident, before responding.

“I already regret asking.” Another question bubbled, curiosity always winning over consequence. “Why?”

“Gol blood is weird, you can do stuff with it you can’t with other Houses.” Jack got quickly evasive, sweeping a look across the room to see if anybody who might interfere was present.

“What kind of stuff?” Ash could see a scheme moving within him, the force of motion coming from someone else. The motive was obscured from him, the one pushing his engine carefully hidden in a way that worryingly evaded him.

Joaquina swept across the room, her scent aged leather and dry tobacco. She laid a single hand on his shoulder, the deep lines about her eyes crinkling deeply in what Ash had long learned was a reassuring smile born from a youth spent in masks and bandannas.

“I can see what the Whelps trying to rope you into.” She stepping just enough into Ash’s personal space that he could feel the Mavvar fire tickling his skin. She stood stalwart between them, a clear sign that if he should need it she was there for him. “Gol blood does things its not supposed too, and it stains something fierce. Mix it up with paint and things get interesting. You put in some Mavvar blood too and you’ve got a shining beacon that screams ‘Go to hell, this place ours’. Just dust it on your step and you’ll never get those bastards, pretty or creepy, darkening your doorway ever again.”

“So you want to splash my blood on your territory? I suppose its better than cocking your leg and peeing on it.” There was a feeling from that dark place that it was more akin to the blood of lambs warding against the wrath of angels and plagues taking firstborn.

For a moment potential hung in the air, like the wily coyote off the edge of a cliff, before they decided his words were in humour. Harsh laughter rang out, Jack growing uncomfortable at how easily Ash found his place in their world when he was not only younger but of radically different blood.

“It has to be willingly given. Believe me we’ve already tried it the other way.” Something about that sentence summoned meat hooks and whimpered begging.

“Is Randal about?” Ash already knew he was not. There was a dullness to the place that was unmistakably his absence.

“Nope, he’s off doing something he said was vitally important. Alone. Took a whole bunch of guys with him too.” There was a hint of disapproval from them, Jack watching the other Mavvar with an odd intensity. “Left us to do as we please, so are you in or not?”

Good judgement would have him say ‘no’. Luckily he was Golgotha and thus incapable of picking the sensible option when presented.

“I’m in.” Ash somewhat regretted his choice when he saw the contraption they planned to use to extract blood from him. It looked like it had been a tattoo gun at one point far back in its existence before the Mavvar had gotten ahold of it. He offered an arm and hoped for the best.

* * *

The Mavvar moved with a focused ferocity, deathly silent even when Ash tried to make the occasional joke or comment. Only Jack seemed at odds with them, his humanity still bright in him likely more so than even Ash.

He felt no shame over what he had done, only the edge of something that told him he should have felt it if he were capable. Dwelling on it did no good, but at the same time it seemed to do him no harm either.

As they approached the edge of Mavvar territory the Golgotha presence grew ever more powerful. Without actually entering it only required a little effort to scatter the sight of any who might be watching, though there would be some passing recognition by any who actually put in the effort to scry their presence.

A place was chosen, the Mavvar sensing the edge of what was theirs just as well as Ash could. It was so close it could almost be touched, and in doing so likely send a shiver of alert through every son and daughter of Golgotha even vaguely near.

“Care to do the honours?” The stencil was pressed to the wall, the can rattled a few times and thrown for him to catch.

Ash took it, the cold of Golgotha magic sparking off the fire of the Mavvar in a way that felt uniquely wrong.

With a single squeeze and downward spiralling motion he made the mark.

The symbol burned like fire in his sight, a beautiful thing rendered in blood and ink and icy cold solvent that tickled his senses, and like a whispered prayer he felt the word ‘Mavvar’ upon his lips.

It hurt for a moment, like licking a lit match, a wave of resistance that made him feel distinctly unwelcome.

A hand landing on his shoulder snapped him back to the almost real world, a comforting squeeze and a motherly smile greeting him for the second time that night.

“I think you did pretty well for a whelp in bad company.” Joaquina had kept near, finally stepping out from her cover to recover the lost Gol before he got himself too deep in trouble and it fell to her to console Randal.

“Who you calling ‘bad company’ grandma?” One of the Mavvar snarled.

“I call it like I see it. Now put it away or put em up, your choice.” Joaquina pulled a revolver from its holster with a spinning flourish, her look equal parts playful joy and fierce challenge.

The Mavvar put up his hands, bowing out of that fight.

“Maybe next time. I’m saving my fight for later, we got a certain someone we’re visiting tonight.” As they said it Ash felt a shock of vision, a floor soaked in blood and the feeling he ought to be there fumbling with an old rotary phone, the image blasted away like he was trying to view something that had the presence of a much more powerful seer hiding it. It seemed the presence of more powerful Golgotha’s hiding the future from his sight was the theme for the night.

“Who?” Jack frowned, clearly not as in with that group as he had hoped.

“You’ll know tomorrow.” They all laughed. “We’re going to make sure he doesn't fuck with the Mavvar again. Been a long time coming. See you around.”

The Mavvar left, noticeably leaving Jack behind.

“The trick to winning a dick measuring contest is to never be the one to start it. Anybody with something to prove ain’t got nothing worth showing.” Joaquina said it with a wink. “Keep better company next time, both of you. Those aren't rebels like we are, they’re something else.”

Ash had to disagree, Jack had a shade of their colour to him.

“Wisdom of the ages. Isn’t it supposed to be those of my blood that deal in sagely advice?” Ash was certain that the Golgotha peddled an equal amount of well dressed bullshit too, though the Iscari were certainly no slouch in that particular market either.

“You guys got nothing but your heads in the clouds.”

“Better than where the Iscari have their heads, putting it impolitely.”

“Right you are on that.” She patted him affectionately on the shoulder, sun worn wrinkles deepening as she smiled. “Find something to hold onto, something precious. Doesn't matter if its a person, a thing, or an ideal. Just give your heart its all and you’ll be all fine.”

“Vandal said there was wise advice to be found amongst the Mavvar.”

“I bet he said it with a lot more cursing and a whole lot more posturing. That boys like a peacock, always strutting around. And don’t think I haven't noticed who he shakes his tail feathers at. Break his heart and I’ll break your kneecaps.” She said it with only implied threat.

“And if he breaks mine?” Ash was uncertain if his heart or his kneecaps were at greater risk.

“I love you like a grandson even if you’re a skinny little runt. I’d happily knock the lights from his eyes if he hurts you, and don’t forget that if you need a vengeful old lady in your corner.”

Jack just huffed to himself, a stark reminder he was still silently present to their conversation.

“How come I never got this sort of attention.” He said it with such petulance Ash almost saw the echo of Heath through him.

“You ain’t got no spine and certainly ain’t got no liver. Show me some courage and I’ll match it tenfold.”

“Whatever grandma, I’m heading back. I suggest the little Gol should run back to his tower before they yank his chain back.”

“Don’t be a bastard just because nobody loves you.” Joaquina snorted half seriously.

“Scathing.” Jack spun on his heel, lovingly raised his middle finger to her as he walked away.

“Disrespectful little shit.” She said it almost fondly. “But he's got a point, nothing much happening tonight and you’re safest wrapped up in a layer of pretty bastards. Get gone kid, and be safe.”

“You too.” Ash opened his arms wide, an open invitation for a hug, and for his invitation he was almost crushed by that Mavvar strength.

* * *

Ash fell into his bed, determined not to do anything for the rest of the night other than watch the stack of movies Heath had provided him and drink himself bloated on the minibars supply of blood packs. His corridor was mostly empty, and each room had its own supply that had mysteriously found its way into his fridge about the same time one of the room service master keys had been lifted from the cleaning staff.

Heath was supposed to have come back to collect them but hadn’t, and he wasn't certain what room if any was his to drop them off at when he was done. He didn't know any other vampires well enough to actually go ask them how to find him, Saorise the only real possibility and one impossible while she was again away on business. He had not been told just how long she was gone lest that information fall into enemy hands, just that her duties were momentarily relegated to the council.

There was an anxious knocking, Ash stretching his senses toward the door and getting absolutely nothing. To be sure he opened the door to yet more nothing but a well air conditioned corridor. He checked left and right, even dipping into the dark below for the ripples left by Golgotha invisibility.

The knocking came again, this time he stood staring at the door wondering just what was happening.

The third time he realised it was at the window.

He went to figure out jut what was happening and was greeted with a familiar smile and warm amber bright eyes.

Randal was clung to the side of the building and trying very hard to not fall.

Ash fumbled with the window lock, having to twist it several ways before he worked out how to release it. He got it open after what felt like a dangerously long time, offering an arm to help him in.

“Windy out there.” Randal fell into the room, landing rather ungracefully with a beaming grin and almost taking Ash down with him. He stood, patting himself down and brushing his literally windswept hair back behind his ear. “Before you say anything this isn't my first time climbing up a building, and it’s absolutely fine. And if its ever not fine its only a problem for about ten seconds.” His laugh was booming, so bright and so alive after how cold and other he had seemed the night prior. Ash couldn't help but be absolutely enamoured by the simple sound of it.

“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but what the actual fuck Vandal?” Ash went straight to the minibar and grabbed a bag, dropping it still sealed in a martini glass to offer him.

“Randal.” He was almost at the point where he didn't care to correct him. Almost. “Blame the Queen Bitch for putting you so high up. If she’d been considerate you’d be on the third floor tops.”

He took the offered glass and put it aside, tearing the bag open with his teeth and gulping the whole thing down in one go before wiping his mouth with his arm.

“That's what I said, Vandal. Ignoring that this was a colossally stupid idea I could almost call this romantic. I might make a poor Repunzel though, needing to be rescued from my tower.”

“I do love to play the role of dashing prince. I’ve just got the jawline for it.” Randal stood tall and proud for a moment, his image resplendent in silvered armour though his halo still burned a sickly blue.

“I wouldn't know, I think I’ve only ever seen beneath that mess of a beard sideways, and I don't know if I like the you without quite as much.” Ash spoke the words with only half understanding. “I do wish you’d appear at my window every night. Like Bloody Mary in a bathroom mirror, but blond and handsome.”

“Say my name three times and I’ll be there to haunt your ass.” There was a flicker of light behind his eyes that Ash had recently come to recognise as vampiric power being expended. Randal always seemed to draw upon it at odd moments for seemingly no reason and Ash had yet to ask why.

“Just my ass? You make the rest of me sad.”

“I’ll haunt every bit of you if you want me to.” Randal leaned ever so slightly forward, just enough that Ash felt him prickling on the edge of his personal space.

“I can’t tell if that's a pickup line or not.” He looked up, almost in awe of that look of mischief.

“That's for you to decide.” Randal pulled back, falling heavily onto Ash’s bed and sitting quite at home and relaxed there. “As much as I enjoy doing this ‘will they wont they’ back and forth flirting with you I’m actually here for a reason.”

“Business or pleasure.”

“Its always a pleasure with you.”

“I thought you said you were done with flirting?”

“I lied. I do that.” Randal gave another booming laugh, unguarded and openly in adoration. “Don’t make any plans for three nights from now.”

“A date?” Ash raised an eyebrow, Randal looking away to hide his smile.

“Maybe” He tried to be casual and cool, and absolutely failed at it. “I’ll have one of my guys drop in on you if everything is going ahead properly, probably Nik or Jack. Keep an eye out for them.”

“I can usually feel them coming, without eyes.” Ash spoke in a low tone, staring almost through Randal.

“Fucking Gols.” Randal shook his head and fought back the shiver running up his spine.

“You appreciate my insight when it helps you.”

“I appreciate you in general, witch sight or not.” He just rolled his eyes, shaking his head faintly.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I hope not.” Randal grew serious for a moment, simply looking into him in a way that made his insight send up a faint flare of alarm. “Then I’ll say it again; I appreciate you for being you, a thing almost unspoiled by how shitty being a vampire can be.”

Ash was caught up in the bright light behind his eyes again, completely pliant when Randal took his hand and pressed a single kiss to his knuckle before standing up with a stretch.

“Thank you.” Ash’s words were barely there, in days now permanently gone his throat would have been terribly dry.

“Be better to yourself, and expect better. And don't be afraid to take what makes you happy, by the throat if you have to.”

Ash reached up, wrapping his hand around his neck, fingers threading in his hair and thumb to where a pulse had once been.

“Good advice.” Ash said as Randal allowed himself to be pulled down.

“Shouldn't I be telling you about our date? What I have planned?” Randal stopped barely an inch from Ash’s lips, suddenly completely unmoving to his pull. Ash frowned, but did nothing to move forward that last space.

“I trust you. If you say I’ll enjoy it then I have to believe I will.” A simple answer, spoken with conviction. Randal was unsure if he ought to be pleased with it or not.

“Don’t put so much blind faith in me. I’ll only disappoint you.”

“Trust. Not faith, never blind. I see more than I should sometimes, and I hope you one day let me understand.” Ash spoke entirely from the visions, the red star burning brightly and the dark below growing restless at Randal’s presence and the almost unrealised potential that hung about him.

Randal flinched away, turning his back to him sharply.

“We still have a lot to talk about, and not enough time. Probably never will be. When I’m done being a coward I’ll let you in properly.”

“Not a coward. Sometimes to run is the brave choice, the unknown has potential both bad and good and that can be terrifying.” Ash direly wished to know just what he meant, because it clearly meant something to Randal. The image was of snapping dogs and a leering grin from a van window, it hurt to perceive for even that half moment and was snapped back from his sight by something with rage and pain in it.

“Fucking Gols.” Randal squared his shoulders, building up all the tension he felt and carefully putting it aside with a simple shrug. “So for the sake of being able to tell the others this was business, anything useful you want to tell me before I go?”

“Sadly no. Saorise is away right now, and I’ve done nothing but dodge my Golgotha brothers and sisters.”

“Why?”

“I don't keep careful notes on the Regents schedule, probably dealing with that Bishop guy she can’t stand. Guy can apparently barely run a city and she feels its vitally important that everyone knows this.”

“I meant the Gol thing.” Randal was back to being serious, suspicion plain about him.

“I keep almost getting invited to meet the Dark Father. I’m always one step ahead of the RSVP, at least I am so far. Its like walking in a room full of mousetraps every time I leave the hotel.” There was a moment where Ash felt the metallic snap of a trap on his fingers and a laugh most certainly belonging to Zhang. A warning that they were closing in on him.

Randal was clenching his jaw and trying not to be seen to be doing it.

“Good, stay away from them. He’s not someone I want you to ever have to deal with. Old Gols are nothing to ever fuck with, and he makes me nervous just being in the same city as me. Promise me you’ll be careful, just that and nothing else.”

“I’ll dodge invites forever if it’ll make you happy.”

“No, you’ll dodge them because it keeps you safe. My happiness doesn't play into this. You’re more important.” Randal ran a hand through his hair, for the second time that night having to deliberately put his calm exterior back in place. Now that Ash had witnessed it he had to wonder if it was just something vampires did; Saorise, Heath and Randal alike seemed to wear their masks either without realising or with practised ease. “Just don’t go joining some creepy Gol cult, and don’t drink the kool-aid even if it looks like blood.”

“I’m not a fool, at least for nobody but you.” Ash found his sly remark falling without impact.

“I appreciate not having to worry about you. You’re strong, and mostly smart when you’re not being a Gol.” Randal eyed the window, deciding his time was likely up. “I should get going before they notice the broken windows, and where I stuffed that guard that tried to stop me.”

“You didn't, did you?” Ash could scry no answer, a worrying prospect.

He took a pen and a napkin from his back pocket and scrawled a map down upon it with a few street names, along with the date three days from then. Ash recognised the area, a place near to where Markus had taken him in those early nights. He pressed it into Ash’s hands with a wink.

“I’m here with a bunch of guys, call it field training. Can’t leave ‘em alone too long or it always ends in arson.” Randal climbed up onto the window ledge, blowing a kiss before vanishing up onto a higher floor with a single vaulting movement. “Don’t miss it, or I’ll be very disappointed.”

Ash lost track of him shortly after, entirely unsure just what his escape plan actually was. Come dusk the next night he would know, a certain someone had managed to hot wire a hanging window cleaning trolley and had left a rather nasty gouging mark down the whole length of the building. It was ruled to be a Golgotha prank, security on edge for the return of the Regent after such an extreme lapse.

The note was slid under his mattress, right below where his head lay to rest. Close enough to not be lost and hidden enough not to be found.

Three nights to wait, and hopefully nothing between the present and the future. The music grew ominously silent at that thought, something Ash should have paid better attention to. When dawn came he fell easily to sleep, dreaming of a room full of mousetraps and a set of burning yellow eyes peering out from the dark below.


	11. The Resurrected

“Enter.” Saorise caught Ash before he could even tap his knuckles to the door. He held there for a moment with his hand raised to the thick wood; likely something imported, expensive and reinforced enough to weather a horde of hunters, before putting on his best flippant Golgotha attitude and readying himself.

He pushed it open with only some trepidation, the air oddly still. There was almost a lace veil upon the regent where should have sat the image of a crown, rows of black suits and black dresses with bowed heads before a six foot drop.

The room was noticeably empty of the various barons and lords that ruled their little domains, only Saorise and her closest agent present. In recent weeks she had been the centre point of a great many schemes and plans, her office heavy with the weight of potential and conspiracy. Now there was just weight, somewhere between a thick fog and a force of great gravity to Ash’s senses.

“You called for me?” Ash was immediately on edge, something about her tone just ever so slightly off. Randal’s little stunt had not gone unnoticed, though the blame had been put elsewhere.

“Please, take a seat.” She motioned to the leather couch after a long moments pause, standing from her desk and taking the seat opposite him, smoothing down the folds in her dress as she did so.

Ash fell into it his space, no urge to lounge or relax forthcoming.

“Do you have orders for me?” He finally spoke after several seconds of watching the ideas circling the regent, buzzing like mosquitoes.

“I do. But there is something else first.” Saorise gave a nod to her Agent to leave the room.

The Agent visibly stiffened, taking a moment to study the situation before deciding that Ash was likely no threat at all. Ash was uncertain if he ought to be relieved or insulted.

“I’ll be just outside Ma’am.” the Agent closed the door that Ash had rudely left open behind him, standing braced against the far wall ready to burst in at the slightest alarm.

Saorise took off her glasses, setting them down on the table with a clink of metal against glass. She took a breath in, hands clasped together almost like prayer, her words being carefully and methodically chosen to hide the strain upon her at what was about to be said.

“There has been several more attacks, same mutilations as the body you found.” Saorise was holding something back, a lie of omission as more a mercy than a manipulation. Her resolve hardened, her duty remembered, the absoluteness of her authority returning. “We have yet to find the body, but Heath has been missing for several nights now.”

“Oh.” That little mystery seemed to have ran its course, Ash completely oblivious to his absence beyond a few inconveniences.

“I didn't want to inform you until we were somewhat certain. Its not unknown for him to vanish for a few nights, usually turning up completely wrung out. But this has been too long.” She paused in consideration, moved to say something, decided against it, then countermanded that. “I’m sorry.” It almost didn’t sound hollow, like it was something she had said many times before to others with greater and lesser losses.

“It’s not your fault.” Ash moved as if to offer her some comfort, a hug most likely in what had been a bad habit picked up from Randal, but chose not to. Saorise almost wore a layer of stinging barbs upon her skin, their image against the insight growing sharper when any dared draw near.

“Every death that could have been prevented is my burden to carry. Heath likely more than any.” She averted her gaze, instead watching Ash through the well polished reflection in the glass table.

“Is there history between you I’m missing?” Ash could see a lifetime of context written through her, laughter almost warm and the closest thing to love an ancient such as her was capable of. But it was not for Heath, not quite.

“I was close with his mother after her remaking, and I was the one who granted her permission to remake him in turn. It was a personal favour to her, and one I never should have agreed to. As a human he was always prone to bouts of melancholia, at least when he wasn’t on an upswing. The Iscari gift is not kind to those who feel too deeply, every high becomes wondrous and every low utterly hopeless.” There was the barest hint of the depth of her experience to those words, witness to whole generations suffering for their immortality, more often then not falling short of the mark, often just falling.

“So you feel responsible for him after she left?” Heath had been somewhat evasive about it, or rather had been entirely open in just the right way to avoid the specifics. Vampires were prone to gossip though, the Iscari with less forwardness and certainly more slander than the Mavvar.

“If she left.” The implication was clear. “She simply vanished, her accounts untouched and her worldly possessions left behind. Like mother like son I suppose.”

“I know it isn't wise but I can probably leverage some help from the enemy, see if they have heard or seen or felt anything. That is what I’m here for isn't it, bridging that divide?” Ash was certain, without certainty why he knew so, that Zhang would offer his help.

“No. A show of weakness might inspire further bloodshed, we can admit to nothing. We must be strong, now more than ever.”

“You think whoever is behind this might strike again if they know that they have our attention?” He could see it was not the enemy she worried about, another secret unshared.

“I don’t think they care. The spotlight isn't the place for killers, at least not for very long.” Saorise snorted as if there was some bitter, private joke there, the music trembling just a little bit in a warning Ash failed to notice. Her words were cryptic enough to be Golgotha, no insight forthcoming as if the subject was veiled.

“So, my orders?” Ash motioned broadly to himself and the room. No time to mourn, to contemplate a friendship, just to move forward.

“Ah, I almost let myself be distracted.” Saorise took her glasses from the table and slid them back onto their proper place upon the bridge of her nose. With a deep breath she straightened her posture, all trace of that moment of forthcomingness gone. “We’ve narrowed down the attacks to a relatively small area and we’re sending teams of two to investigate each potential site. I’m afraid we are vastly understaffed with the war, so all agents and assets that can be spared are being sent out. That includes you.”

“I’m being shanghaied?”

“I was under the impression that term meant nautical kidnapping. I believe draughted is more apt for your situation.” It could almost be mistaken that Saorise was almost amused. “Teams are assembling in the lobby now, you’ll be leaving on the hour.”

Ash spared a glance to the clock, always too little time for a man that now supposedly had forever.

“And there's nobody else better suited?” He already knew there was not.

“You’ve tracked them once, that alone puts you at an advantage. You have a talent for talking your way through situations that would otherwise see violence, and whoever we are dealing with very much wants to send a message. It might be a gamble, but I think you have the best chance of reasoning with them.”

“And if they cannot be reasoned with?”

“Then there are weapons left at the front desk for you. Be certain that you return in one piece.” Saorise looked rather pointedly toward the door, a sure signal that he was dismissed.

“If I die I want my worldly possession to go to either a low Mavvar called Jack or Zhang the Golgotha under the Dark Father.”

“What wordly possessions would that be?” Saorise was certain she was going to regret indulging him that one short moment. She made no comment on his choices, but did make a short note to investigate.

“The ugly horse painting in my room. If its haunted me these many night I want them to have to suffer it too when I’m gone.” Ash grinned, showing sharp teeth.

The regent very much was right, a familiar sigh on her lips to accompany that familiar regret. It was almost like Markus still stalked the halls, a headache shaped like a man. His continued exile was both a pleasure and a concern, oversight rarely reigned him in but being able to know of the collateral damage in time was a small comfort.

Ash slipped from the room before he could be dismissed again, giving a salute to the Agent as he passed.

* * *

Ash found to his delight that his partner for the job, Kedric, a man born and reborn with a scowl etched into his face, had a terribly short temper and just the right sort of mind that made picking his thoughts an ease and a pleasure. Irritation was a strange sensation to hear echoed from another, a thrill akin to a quick hit of something dangerous with none of the comedown. It was no wonder the Golgotha had such a reputation for mischief.

So he hummed tunelessly, wound down the window to enjoy the rush of air, made idle chatter, and was a general nuisance always to the point of frustration where he would pull back and give him a moment to breathe. He would have done that dance all night if they had not reached their destination, Kedric fleeing the vehicle for just a few moments of peace.

The drop off location was quiet, not even the whispers of distant voices Ash had come to associate with nearby Golgotha. That alone was an odd thing, a brief flickered thought of question vanishing into the dark without recognition or reply.

“Have you ever fought before?” Kedric interrupted Ash’s probing, the bouncing echo of his sight pushed so hard it could almost be felt by the Iscari. He had said ‘fought’ but meant ‘killed’ by the way its meanings echoed.

“Yes.” Ash did not elaborate further, but seemed just for a moment that his impression of the Golgotha had shifted slightly upward from ‘irritation’ to ‘almost tolerable in short bursts’.

“Good. We’re not expecting trouble, at least not immediately. But stay vigilant, you know how the Regent can be when dealing with failure.” His snort made Ash instantly aware that there had been some dire failure recently on his part, Kedric drawn from his post by eyes burning golden and eyes glowing white. There was more there, trying to chase it strikingly difficult and almost painful.

Kedric had chosen to ignore how Ash had simply folded his arms over his chest and started staring blankly, all too aware how the Golgotha often got lost in their own thoughts. While Ash was preoccupied he stooped low over the sewer cover and lifted it with one hand, throwing it away with a might crash that startled the Gol back into their own awareness.

“Why is it always sewers?” Kedric wore a full sneer, nose crinkled. He put his sleeve over his mouth, dropping it when it was entirely futile.

“It hides their scent, they’ve hunted us well enough to know how to evade us.” Ash spoke in that faraway voice that often meant it was true.

“I was being rhetorical. Fucking Gols.”

Ash just had to smile at that, Kedric taken aback by the out of place warmth and the melancholy not understanding that what he had said was exactly what Randal and many other of the Mavvar had said countless times before.

While Ash appreciated the serenity and order of the Coven there was something so terribly sterile about it, the chaos and well bonded family of the Mavvar called to him so much more now that he had been baptised as one of them.

Kedric went down the ladder, announcing something that might have been that he was taking the lead if it had not become warped and distorted. Ash moved to follow as all the colour faded from the world.

A grip like steel caught his arm and dragged him back away from the ladder. Ash immediately lashed out, his hand caught and held.

Markus had not been there a moment before. His look was oddly serious, eyes burning almost white through his sunglasses as he held them both in the almost other place out of sight.

“Don’t fight them, let them talk then leave. Nothing more.” His tone was oddly flat, serious in a way it never should have been. He gently guided Ash’s hand back down to his side, letting it go and taking a step back. He slouched, hands in pockets, the action as insincere as it always had been.

Ash looked through him, finding a hollow stillness that had no right to be there. No hunger, no need, no satisfaction. Emptiness. He recoiled from it as it reached curiously for him, like it ought to have known him.

“Hello to you too.” Ash found himself with less patience than usual, especially for one who had been absent for quite some time after leaving him a crisis in the Mavvar and an angry regent to deal with.

“Dear traveller, I’m only here to help you.” Markus paused a moment as he plunged his insight into Ash’s mind, the intrusion entirely unhidden and entirely too strong to stop. “You cannot beat this half beast. I saw it born and baptised in blood and flesh, I know what it can do. It will kill you, and make itself stronger doing so.”

“If you know so much why not help me, or at least tell what should I do?”

“Nobody tells you what to do, you just choose to sometimes listen. Your love told you to bow to nobody, and maybe you just might listen.” Markus sounded oddly fond of him in that moment, reaching out as if to ruffle his hair like a parent to their firstborn. Ash batted his hand away, no real malice to it, simply the desire not to be touched. Markus accepted his choice without offence taken. “Talk. Your anger is misplaced, the pretty polaroid isn't gone by his hand.”

“You know about Heath?”

“I do.”

“And will you tell me where he is if he’s not gone?” Ash knew his words before he had even said them.

“You already know that I wont, why ask?” Markus’ look grew fonder as Ash mouthed the words along with him. The insight grew in him with every night, a wondrous thing to behold, like a wildfire left to run through a city of wood and straw.

“Saying it makes it real, more so for our kind than the others dare guess.” Ash found his words growing stranger, had been since they arrived, a sure sign Markus had been waiting and present the whole time. Golgotha alone were like a broken mirror, reflecting the world back with all its imperfection on show. Multiple Golgotha were something worse, the image trapped between reflections, bounced to and fro forever, growing steadily more cracked with each return.

“You have a gravity to you, trust that they'll find you when its time.” He made an airy motion as if it was obvious.

“Trust and faith are bedfellows, and you told me never to trust.”

“I lie, vampires are prone to that. So are humans. That, and destroying what they think might be their enemy if only to satisfy their frail ego.” Markus had that look again, a bittersweet smile like he was satisfied about being right about the world being so awful.

“What happened to you?” Ash could see the after image of blood soaking his clothing, the image of him at perfect peace so bright and insistent against the near done reality.

“The Mavvar didn't much agree with what I had to say. In a better life I think I might have had help dealing with that little crisis, but nevermind the what ifs and the maybes. What is a more pressing matter is that your friend has wandered off without you, I suggest you go after them before a bad fate befalls them.”

Ash stole a look toward the open hole, realising that Kedric’s presence had completely faded. When he looked back Markus was gone.

He climbed quickly down into the dark, his trail fresh enough to follow. He had been certain Ash was merely a step behind the whole time, not once seeing through whatever trick Markus had cast.

He did not run, did not let panic guide him to ruin, simply followed the echo of his thoughts trapped and reverberating off thick concrete.

The music shrieked, an ear splitting tone that faded to something like tv static, its sudden absence leaving only a ringing. He saw it barely a few paces away, stooped so low it could barely be seen.

Ash knew that all he had to do was concentrate, to siphon a little of that power into the task and then the darkness would fold away. He could not bring himself to do so, frozen still by what he saw.

It was a mass, too many jaws stretched wide as it gorged itself on raw chunks of what had been Agent Kedric. It swung itself to the side as if it sensed Ash watching, a multitude of eyes shifting and blinking toward him. With a slow lurch forward it dragged itself down the passage toward him, its skin stretched pale thin as something writhed inside. Human hands with inhuman claws tore away below the surface, fighting to free themselves, always pulled back down into the flesh.

When it finally moved into the dim light that awful image faded to just a man.

A single eye shone green even in the dim light, one side of his face the perfect marble sculpted beauty of good breeding and the constant attention of a professional dietician, the other side raw and wet as if freshly gored.

“Hello.” He spoke with a voice so soft against such a rough appearance, a smile splitting through the wound without a hint of a flinch or pain. What Ash saw was the absence of those familiar sharp teeth. “I was beginning to wonder when we would meet.”

This creature was only human shaped even if it wasn’t a vampire.

Human life glowed like luminescent fish just beneath the surface of the world, skimming the fine edge of what is real and what was below and ought not to be. Vampires were less and more, their light muted and colours faded like the terrible things found near thermal vents and in trenches miles deep below the waters surface. This thing was something else, shining bright with life but bloated and sick.

A hand was offered, slowly and deliberately like Ash was a scared animal needing nothing but reassurance. Ash chose not to accept it.

“You wanted to meet me?”

“Preferably alone, but you just had to bring a friend. I don’t think he’ll tell anyone what he’s heard though.” He motioned with an almost skeletal arm toward the mess that had been Kedric. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Ash shook his head.

“I figured you wouldn't. You can call me Lazarus, and you are a thief. You stole something precious from me.” He sounded so light and whimsical for such a serious accusation.

“I’ve never met you before.”

“Not quite true. We both stood in the same spot, on the same night, waiting for something. It should have been me that night, I was supposed to be turned.”

“And somehow I was taken instead. Why?”

“Interference, but we’ll get to that in due time.”

“So you missed out on being a vampire and decided to do this instead?”

“I don’t know if you’ve realised but the power your kind wield isn't in the blood, not really. Life is in the blood, but power is all flesh.” He smiled broadly, teeth still stained red. “I’m the hero here, I hunt vampires.”

“And then eat them, its...” Ash held back his words, his disgust. He had killed too, a shiver of pleasure and shame riding up his spine every time he remembered how good it had felt to bite down into that hunter and drain everything. The worst part was knowing that the shame would fade, and with it his reluctance to do it again.

“Vile? Disgusting? Gross? Go on, say it, I wont be offended.” His smirk grew with his laughter, almost child like glee shining out even through his mutilated face. “Hypocrites, all of your kind. Blood drinking is sexy, but this isn't?”

“Why then? Why everything?”

“You’ve been to the graveyard, met Andrei.” It should have been a question, but it was given as an absolute truth.

“The name isn't familiar.”

“You’re lying.” the creature said it with bared teeth, but paused as if listening or seeing, drawing a shaking breath. “No, you’re not. You’re just wrong. You should have, you always have, but you haven’t.”

The part of him in the dark below writhed, parts moving within to realign themselves. Ash could see too many eyes scrying all directions, past, present and future, all focused on him and all terribly unwilling.

“Why are you not lying? That's what your kind do. You lie, Saorise lied, Markus lied.”

“Markus? Saorise?” Ash wasn't certain which was the worse association.

“Saorise promised me the world, that she understood me, and wanted to help me. It was Andrei that stole all of that from me, conspiring with Markus to deny me after he was the one who showed me this path in the first place.” His teeth were bared again, rage so bright it burned to be near. “You were turned instead, not a coincidence either. Someone is fucking with all of us, our lives and deaths, and I’m willing to bet its Andrei with his sick little games.”

Ash was oddly certain that there was not the whole truth there, that this beast was flailing at the puppets and the strings while the hands still moved them from afar.

“If you know so much, then why me?”

“Because I see you sometimes when I close my eyes. The more of your brothers and sisters I eat the more I just see you. You are not significant, everything exists in this awful balance because it has been made to be that way. You are just the witness, put in the right place to change the outcome by tipping it all one way. And I hate it, I hate you for everything.” Lazarus drew a shaking breath, calming himself. “But I think I need you. This war promises to bring Andrei out of his safe little hole where I can get to him, and you are probably the one to do it. A deal then, your life now and my help should you need it if you deliver my message to Saorise with my name attached. And when the time comes I take Andrei’s life and I have his flesh.”

Ash pondered for a moment. It was not a wise choice to make a promise he could not fulfil, worse if he did and this beast fed on what he guessed was likely an ancient.

“You leave the city when this is over, hunt anywhere but here.” Ash folded his arms, looking for just long enough like any other Iscari negotiator.

“You’re in no position to bargain, but I’ll say yes because I hate this city anyway. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.” Ash felt like he had just slightly tipped the scales in his favour, and worse he now knew that that looming abyss was a step closer. He would stand at its edge with Randal and hope they lived to see the bottom.

Lazarus was not a weapon that could be wielded without collateral, a pirouette of indiscriminate violence under hot stage lights was what he had waiting to be unleashed.

“Then leave me alone, I don’t even want to look at you right now. Tell Saorise that she failed me, and this is what she gets for it.” He pointed to Kedric’s remains like a cat showing its owner the freshly disembowelled bird they had dragged in.

Ash left, turning back for one last look to see too many eyes watching his retreat before the beast returned to its feast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry its a month late and quite rough in places, had to move to a new place in a hurry because of a new neighbour that doesn't approve of people like me and my better half existing.


	12. The Mousetraps

Ash was startled awake by a knocking on his door. The dreams had been mostly pleasant, underpinned by that ever present music deciding it wanted to be soft and melodious.

“Come in.” he shouted, pulling a half unbuttoned shirt over his head and pooling the sheets about his waist to be at least presentable.

Saorise’s right hand agent strode in, slipping the master keycard back into his pocket.

“I’ll keep this brief, you have a task.” He did a cursory sweep of the room, lingering on the stack of vhs tapes with a flicker of something that tasted like someone else's regrets.

“Anything interesting? Sewers? Political negotiations? Rescuing lost kittens and puppies?” Ash watched the look on the Agents face grow direly unamused.

“The last one, or near enough.” He remained unceasingly serious, still and unblinking in the way only the dead could be.

Ash had noticed that as he grew ever more familiar with his new life so to did the other vampires grow more comfortable with him, dropping the pretences and acts of humanity when he was present. He had to wonder if it was a choice or an instinct, either way he was now more seen as vampire than mortal.

“Have I gone mad or did you just make a joke?” Ash leaned forward, trying to scry the truth and finding the insight terribly uncooperative. The insight was instead making the bland wallpaper considerably more floral, now roses of a shade of red typically reserved for danger signs.

“I believe madness is a predisposition to your House, and it is your House that has caused this issue.” The Agent gave no clear answer, his sidestep of the issue obvious and a clear challenge not to engage further. “There has been a mass turning over the last few nights. Since we denied them the right to turn without restriction they have decided to take it by force.”

“I recall them demanding that right during negotiations, guess they were serious about it after all.” Ash had thought at the time it was a distraction, likely still was, but a threat without intention was hollow. This was likely the carefully timed consequences of those negotiations failing.

“Saturnalia is currently hosting a significant number of new Golgotha, all remade without permission and left to fend for themselves. The Regent believes you are best suited to make our case before the Golgotha come to reclaim them, or worse they fall in with the rebels.”

“Nobody else available?” Ash could almost smell the deception, like the sort of oil found in fine mechanics. Something else was happening, the conflict of plans moving against each other gave him the impression the floor beneath his feet was shifting.

“You are in the unique position of being young enough to relate to their situation and known enough that even they should bow to your wisdom.” The Agent was being far too pleasant, too complimentary. “The Regent chose you specifically for this task, your place is not to question the decision.

“Dare I ask why she hasn’t summoned me directly?”

“She is away on business.” That was a lie.

Ash could hear her in the building, her thoughts so terribly loud and raging. Betrayal, surprise, and a sadness beneath it all. Above all she was plotting, and Ash felt certain this task had become his only to keep him where he could not interfere. That raised the question what he could not be trusted to know?

“I’ll take the job.”

“There wasn't a choice. Be out front in fifteen minutes, no delays.”

Ash was usually given at least a half hour, enough time to catch up on the gossip of the night from the Iscari in the lobby bar. They obviously didn't want him catching any part of what was happening, but even he could feel the pressure that came before violence. There was the intention of violence that night.

* * *

There was a taxi waiting for him where the usual car should have been. He was waved over, recognised, the door left unlocked for him.

Without a word the driver sped off, Ash staring out the window watching familiar streets passing in a rush of lights and advertisements. It was enough to let him fall into a half dreaming state, almost meditative, intentions shining through the false words plastered to billboards all blandly saying ‘consume’.

There was a wrong turn that drew him back to himself, a possible bypass to traffic he had thought, then another, then another leading them back on themselves and away from any possible route to Saturnalia.

The driver was sweating, his heart pounding so loud Ash could feel its staccato beat somewhere just below his teeth. About his head was a crown of sharp needles, facing inward, every wrong movement gauging pretty spirals out of his skin.

“ _Where are you taking me?”_ was what Ash tried to say. Instead it came out as: “I'd say we’re going six miles to the place where most go only six foot down.”

Ash instantly raised every one of his defences and cast his sight outward. He was being watched without eyes, the Golgotha strangeness flowing far too easily.

Yellow eyes reflected in the dark below, cast like reflections from willing hosts sat half dreaming about the city as sentinels, spies and watchers.

“A better question, who?” Ash had his suspicions, though oddly that razor sharp smile matching razor sharp wit did not appear in his mind as the whole answer. There was a bright light next to Zhang’s comfortable shadow, the edges of his presence fighting back too much to care that Ash could see him.

“I didn't get a name. There was two of them, the one who did the talking was a bit of a pretty boy if you now what I mean. Walks on the other side of the road, bats for a different team, that sort. Gave me this to find you.” The driver tried to fight the compulsion and was snapped back into compliance by the power cast upon him.

He had found the dead cared little for such things, his almost relationship with Randal raising no ire or sour looks, starkly reminded that the mortal world still suffered that particular hateful sickness all too much.

A photograph was passed over his shoulder, Ash snapping it away from him.

It had been taken a few weeks ago, even in a trapped moment his deathly stillness was visible. Heath had decided one night he wanted to photograph everything and everyone that had set foot in Saturnalia, his mood high and perhaps a little manic. Ash had only been there for the company, willing to help Heath entertain himself while Randal and his inner circle were off doing something explosive and illegal in Golgotha territory.

“Describe them.” Ash found his patience short while holding back too many intrusions as the Golgotha grew in both number and curiosity.

“Dyed hair, kinda pale, scrawny, too much cologne. Other one just smiled at me, wore the kind of suit that says they’re in the big leagues of crime.”

“The first one; Green eyes, wears his sadness like a blanket, good taste in tailoring?” Ash already knew.

“Seems about right.”

“His name is Heath. And you’ll forget all of this.” Ash spoke it as both an order and an observation. The driver’s mind was blown wide open by the brute force of an Iscari exercising their power over others.

“What?” The driver blinked momentarily, veering just a little into the wrong lane before correcting himself.

“Exactly.”

Relief and suspicion made terrible befellows. Heath was alive, but somehow to be found amongst the enemy. The pretty polaroid had always thought the Golgotha darkness held depth, but never enough to willingly step into it. Or at least Ash had never thought him capable.

His thoughts were interrupted by his arrival at the place he had been avoiding.

The gates were black and gold, the kind of ostentatious only Hollywood could produce.

The taxi door was opened with a flourish, Zhang giving a theatrical bow like the estate butler ushering the lord of the manor to their reading room.

“Well, well. If it isnt a late night visitor. Delighted you could join us, and without the need for beartraps. Cannot say if I’m disappointed or not.” He made a motion as if showing his hands to be empty.

“I thought it was mousetraps?”

“Have you ever tried finding human size mousetraps?”

“An excellent point.”

“Of which I have many. He is waiting for you.” Zhang put a sharp inflection on ‘He’, reverent first but with something else hidden beneath.

“Where’s Heath?” Ash watched the various answers play out in him, at the core of every one a grain of bitterness that could not be honeyed by any amount of smooth words or sweet wit.

“With the Dark Father.” Zhang tilted his head so that his eyes were better hidden by shadow, but the flare of angry amber light from those depths could not be ignored.

“By choice?” Ash wondered just how much choice he himself had in this situation.

“You act as if you are the only one capable of stepping over the lines we have drawn. Love is a powerful motivator, though I think you think you know that already.” Zhang shrugged, kicking a loose pebble away.

“What love?”

“Narcissus and his pool, though I think I’m being a little cruel in saying it.” Zhang smiled his oddly charming crooked smile, a single sharp tooth catching his lip. “He wishes to be adored, I wish he could find somewhere else to get his fix.”

“Your problem isn’t with him. You’ll never find the light if you only look to the dark.” The truth shone so easily to him, though Zhang wilfully averted his gaze from it. The music dropped a few notes, like the musician was fumbling.

“I know that. I wish I didn't, but I do. The choice has been made, the die has been cast, what choice is there left but to await the outcome?” He gave another shrug, more forcefully this time.

“You see the yawning abyss too, but you assume we must fall.” Ash took a half step back, gesturing with both arms to the thing always just a few steps ahead of every Golgotha with even a drop of insight. So close to it the wind could be heard whistling from its depths, its tune so terribly close to the music inside.

“Fate is never so kind as to make a way out so clearly signed.” Zhang took a half step forward, half leaning over the edge. He had no fear of the future, of the war, the weight upon his shoulders wholly different.

“I never thought you the sort to not make a mockery of the best laid plans. Fate or not you could create a better ending for yourself. Forget the war and do what feels right.” Ash thought for a moment. “I made the promise to bow to no kings, no rulers, no tyrants. Even where I fail the struggle still has meaning.”

“Only a fool lets go of their boat in a storm.” Zhang laughed, but in his eyes Ash could the reflection of something terrible and unfamiliar. He immediately dived after it, the image slipping away from him.

Zhang felt the echo of it through him, and understood instantly that Ash could not see it coming.

The pair were now circling each other like cats, with careful steps and unblinking stares, that near future they could both see staying stretched out between them and the one Ash could not always just out of reach.

Ash tried to see what Zhang saw and found it only to be caught in the edge of reflections.

Zhang saw that morbid curiosity and knew that even with the depth of Ash’s insight it was somehow a mystery to him. He could see the tipping moment, the abyss that all with insight had become so fixated on, but he could not perceive the many dire omens about it pointing to a worse thing. The dark was not to be feared, it was what lurked in its depth bearing a red omen that had them all uneasy.

After several seconds they pulled back to themselves, both left with much to think about.

“At the gates of a graveyard seems no better place to ask, could I have a coin for Charon?” Ash asked plainly, nodding toward the payphone almost lost under graffiti and half torn posters for bands long since disbanded.

Zhang took a single coin from his pocket, tossing it up into the air.

“Yours to take. Heads the Golgotha win, tails we lose to Iscari or Mavvar, what other path is there to take for the likes of us?” He seemed so certain as it spun in the air, his smile bright with victory that no matter how it landed his point was won.

The coin fell into the image of the abyss and scattered it away as Zhang made a wish as if from a fountain. It fell perfectly into a crack in the concrete, edge facing upwards.

“I know an omen when I see it.” Ash stooped low to pick it up, leaving Zhang to stare into that single crack in the ground and consider its greater meanings.

The number came easy to his fingers, though he was sure he had never dialled it before.

It rang several times, picked up a moment before it cut off to what sounded like a busy party.

“Hello.” The voice on the other end was most certainly not Randal.

“Jack, not who I’m hoping to hear from.” Ash leaned against the side of the payphone, watching Jack’s quickly growing frustration.

“And fuck you too.” There was a rustling as Jack put the phone to his chest to muffle his shouting. “Randal, its for you!”

Jack handed it over, Randal’s image appearing so much sharper and clearer. For just a moment Randal looked right at him, blinking as if unsure he was seeing something real or nearly so.

“Sexiest Mavvar in Hollywood speaking.” Randal sounded like he was in a good enough mood, though slightly puzzled. He closed his eyes and shook his head, running a hand through his hair as if soothing a headache.

“A fact I know direly well.” Ash closed his eyes and forceably pushed back against the dark below, the vision of the beachhouse now gone and replaced by Zhang crouching low to study the crack with greater scrutiny.

“Ash, I wasn't expecting a call, I mean I’m not saying I don't want to talk its just a surprise, a good surprise.” Randal would have choked on his words if he needed breath.

“You are as smooth as sandpaper when you’re caught out.”

“Hopefully more fun to lick than sandpaper?” Randal’s grin was wide enough to be heard.

“Kinky, though I've licked neither thus far. Is that the voice of experience I hear?”

“I’ll never tell. So did you want something or was it just to hear my voice because I can’t do any dirty talk with all the guests I’ve got here. Well I could, but you know Joaquina will shoot me in the foot if I try given she's such a classy lady.” Ash thought he heard the clicking hammer cock of a well kept six shooter somewhere behind Randal. It flickered a vision through him of a different phone call and Saorise apologising, though for what he could not see.

“Business I’m afraid. Short version is: at payphone, limited time, I think Saorise has sent out a hit squad but I don’t know why so please be careful, there’s a bunch of baby vampires waiting alone at Saturnalia and you have a track record with newborn Gols, and on the topic of my House I might have been abducted by them on the way to recruit said baby Gols but its fine don't panic. I need you to go do the big recruiting speech while I deal with this, okay, love you, bye.” Ash was cut off by the dialtone, his short time spent. He hung up before the nice mechanical lady could ask for another coin.

Randal had tried to say something and had been cut off too. It sounded quite alarmed, especially when Ash had deliberately told him not to panic.

“You’re smiling.” Zhang strolled up, his head tilted as if studying a curiosity.

“Am I not allowed to?” Ash tried to hide it and easily failed.

“Most are usually a little more sombre when meeting the Dark Father.”

“Should I practice my reverent awe face now, or just improvise as I go?”

“Be yourself.”

“I haven't quite been myself since a certain bad night a few months ago.”

“You weren't truly yourself until that good night. You must be torn down to your most basic parts to be rebuilt, and all that is lost in the reforging is the impurities. You see where you were blind, hear where you were deaf, and know where you were ignorant. Don’t forget that, what we have is precious.” Zhang spoke the words with such conviction, the only flaw that it was someone else's conviction. He wore it, borrowed, an almost but not quite perfect fit.

“I look forward to the day you can mean what you say. I hope its coming soon.” Ash pushed open the gates, the sound they made appropriately creaky.

There was a chill in the air nearby, Zhang swallowed by the night and simply gone.

Ash followed the well trodden path, keeping to the places were the moonlight fell without being swallowed by the unnatural darkness.

There was a noticeable absence of the pinprick feeling of vampire presences, too many pulling too hard on the power trying not to be noticed. Ash was certain if he pulled back the veil he would know for a moment that he was surrounded, and there was little worse than knowing just how many circled in the night with hungry knives. Perhaps only knowing and not being able to see them was worse. He chose ignorance, if only because it was the easier option.

He very carefully did not think of calling out for help. There was sewers running criss cross through the whole city, and Ash felt sure there was a thing resurrected and hungry always just a few steps behind him waiting for that call. It was a small comfort to know he had that last line of defense.

From the dark it rose, a mausoleum more like a castle than a grave. From its battlements flew the image of war pennants bearing the mark of the cracked bell that tolled the end of sanity for all who heard its siren music.

Ash had expected something else when he circled the mausoleum, what he found was certainly entirely theatre for his benefit.

The Dark Father stood tall, towering over Heath, cradling his head in his hands and brushing his cheek with mechanically precise care. Ash had expected something much different of the Dark Father, his idea of a waxy death pallor and a widows peak befitting a dracula shattered by warm toned dark skin and tightly coiled rings pulled back and tied neat and sharp against his skull.

“I cannot see how Locke would dare threat you so callously. You are sublime, all that your House should be and more.” His tone was plain, undecorated by the poetry and obfuscation common to all Golgotha Ash had so far met.

Heath did not sink into the touch, but made no movement to recoil from it either.

Ash could feel the barrier raised between them, his presence deliberately hidden from Heath. He pressed a thought against it and found it entirely unyielding, unnervingly strong. A split second look, short enough he might have imagined it had it not frozen him to the spot, told him that any attempt to pierce or break the wall would fail.

“I know you have regrets, many that cut deep even from such a short time in this new life. But I promise you that this will never be one of them. I see the understanding in you.”

“What about Ash?” It was barely above a whisper but heard clearly enough.

“Did you call them here?”

“Of course. I need them to understand.”

“Why?”

“Because they were sometimes kind, even when they didn't have to be. I hope I can say it right, I don't want to lose them.” Heath sighed, letting his gaze fall away from him.

“You said yourself they already made their choice. They might not scream and howl at the moon, but they are as much Rebel as Randal is.” He lifted their head a little more, demanding he meet his eyes.

“I know. But I cant leave them thinking I’m dead, they mean too much to me and I hope I mean enough to them to at least consider what we’re offering.”

“Camaraderie is a powerful motivator, I suggest you find the words quickly.” The Dark Father took a step back, letting the barrier fall.

His presence was dense, like it would be hard to breath about him should Ash ever somehow come upon the ability again. Where other Gols had a fog of stray thoughts that writhed and twisted about them his was a choking miasma that moved in a barely perceptible way. The only tell that he truly was Golgotha was that spark of madness in him, broken and tamed, crushed until it was barely a pinprick of tightly coiled potential. For the first time Ash understood just what Randal had feared.

Heath startled as if rising from a trance, gripping his scarf as if for some minor comfort before letting himself appear to relax.

“I think you have some explaining to do.” Ash felt like a parent catching their child with a handful of crayons and a brightly scribbled wall.

Ash tried to probe for the truth and found another barrier about him no lesser than the previous but altogether more subtle. Something was terribly obvious, Ash certain he could see it and that he ought to be concerned if only he could grasp the memory before it was blasted away by that terrible presence.

“I went to them, I had to. After what happened at Saturnalia, the blo...” Heath was interrupted by the Dark Father putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing in a way that clearly meant he was saying more than he should. “It doesn't matter why, I’ve been working with the Golgotha for a long while. What matters is Saorise. She’s was planning to dispose of me long before I chose my side.”

“You think Saorise was planning to kill you?” Ash was sure she was capable, but equally would not do so without just and dire reason. She was a tyrant, but not a cruel one no matter how the Mavvar insisted so.

“Think? No. I know she was. Probably when this war is over. I’m a loose end, I know too much to be set free and I’m not useful enough to keep. The only reason she keeps me around is because of my mother. I suppose I should have told you about that sooner.”

“Saorise gave me the bare bones version.” Ash felt like he should have known more, that there was a gap in his path where Heath was supposed to have revealed it all. The music played a song almost like an apology.

“Doesn't matter now, she knows. I told her. I had to if I wanted to get you here. She keeps records on every one of her agents, and I needed to know. So I snuck into her office to read my file, and it was gone. Destroyed. And I know what that means. I left her a new folder with my name on it this very night, lets call it a strongly worded letter of resignation.”

Ash felt almost the last piece fall into place. Heath had told Saorise to give her the impetus to be rid of Ash while she gathered forces to have him unmade, the mass turning to give her a task to send him out on so he would be elsewhere when the executioners marched forth into Golgotha territory to put Heath to the dawn, and all that remained was the real reason the Dark Father had allowed all this effort to be expended when it was known to them that Ash was firmly in the Rebel camp with no desire to be anything else.

The Dark Father titled their head ever so imperceptibly as if to acknowledge that he had other purpose, Ash suddenly aware that his deeper thoughts were likely not so private as he had been used to dealing with his brothers and sisters. They stepped softly forward, closer to Ash.

“I have been aware of her intentions for Heath for some time, but believed it prudent to keep distance from these issues unless they required my direct intervention. That she would betray one of her closest so easily speaks volumes of her trustworthiness, and perhaps if we cannot sway you to our side you might at least be willing to lend us your sympathies against her where our goals do not diverge from the Mavvar. Some of us still feel the Mavvar rebellion has merit enough that we should be aligning our support behind them. There is only one obstacle.”

“Randal is being a stubborn asshole. Nothing new there.” Heath huffed, folding his arms over his chest in what was a plain attempt to appear like he wasn't terrified of the rejection he felt certain was coming.

“For the moment would you leave us. I have something I need to discuss in private, words dangerous to share even to you.” The Dark Father looked at Heath, killing the protest on his lips before it could even be formed.

Heath bowed his head and wandered across the shorn short grass and between rows of grave stones until he was out of sight.

“You went to a lot of effort to set this meeting up. What is so dangerous Heath can’t know but I must?” Ash considered his options, whether he could simply walk away and be done with this.

“This was all for good reason. Despite what you may believe I only have the best of intentions, so I will pierce to the heart of this matter without delay. Randal is not the man you believe him to be.” The Dark Father remained impassive, clasping his hands together.

“I think I know, and I don’t think I care. I can almost see what he was, and see clearly what he is now.”

“A mistake, for you adore the shine of the egg and miss the unhatched viper within.” They stopped to consider, and for the first time Ash saw something behind those bright eyes, something that could almost be apprehension. “Another tactic perhaps. Our kind, of all blood and creed, share a particular skill. Within moments of meeting another we can feel the House they descend from with almost perfect clarity. Can you say with certainty that Randal feels like a Mavvar.”

“I can.” Ash realised it was a lie as he said it, flinching away from the revelation. The Dark Father took this as a sign to continue.

“The Mavvar blood bears the traits of power without restraint. Randal never fights alone, and has a remarkably calculating outlook for one supposedly so unbridled by their humanity. He speaks of the freedom to be beasts, that the strong must rise and carve their own destiny, yet he has drawn the meek and downtrodden of the Mavvar to his side and tempered their instinct to lash out toward productive ends.”

“You say it like its a bad thing. So he’s a hypocrite, I used to leave a mouthful of milk in the bottom of the carton so my room-mate would have to replace it. None of us are perfect.” Had it been Saorise she would have taken a moment to remind herself to leave a little space to account for the strangeness of the Golgotha. The Dakr Father had centuries of experience and did not even pause, not even raising an eyebrow at him.

“To suppress the blood so deeply requires a lie so great that even he believes it. He has spun a cocoon about himself and called it Randal, pressed down all the bitterness and pain and in doing so he has made himself a messiah to them. Not deliberately I should add, but he is now a cause unto himself that they would burn the world for if he only asked them.”

“And he wouldn't, because no matter how hard he pretends he doesn’t, he really cares about them.” Ash had seen both sides, Randals frustration and his adoration. He probably hated that he loved them.

“Randal does, and it wounds him every time they come to him like lost children needing guidance when he just wants them to be free. And each and every one of them is a wound to that prison he has made for the broken thing he once was.”

“Still not seeing the problem.” Ash could see, had seen it, the red star shining through the cracks steeped in screaming adoration and the death of thousands.

“To spin a lie so convincing the self changes to suit requires power not found in the young, and terribly few times in the old. We Golgotha see beyond, these rare masquerades pointless and ending only in distrust and infamy. To bear the power to hide it from us I believe he may have committed the one crime above all else our kind cannot forgive, and from it gained what he needed to remake himself.” The image of the thing Lazarus had become shone terribly bright in his mind, that repugnant mass that might have once been a mortal soul that dragged itself against the skin of the world snapping and hissing.

“Randal isn’t the problem. The thing underneath is.” Heath spoke, stepping out from behind Ash. “Vandal. That’s what you call him in your head.”

The ever present music made a sound, ear splitting and awful. A warning to leave, to run, to be anywhere but there. Something bad was coming if he kept on that path, a tipping point.

“I asked you to leave us be. This was not for you.” The Dark Fathers voice held only the slightest note of irritation.

“I already knew. I _heard_ it.” In that moment Heath appearance slipped and he seemed just a little wilder, a little less perfect than he usually was. He could almost be mistaken for happier, no longer coiffed and manicured as if he could finally afford to relax and let the over maintained edges start to fray.

The word echoed in Ash as too many others crowded with too many split meanings. _Seen_ , _tasted_ , _sang_ , _devoured_ , _became_ , _understood_. All echoed at once. Only Markus had ever spoken like that, though Zhang sometimes had shades of it.

Ash realised what it was he wasn't seeing, and how terribly familiar and terribly bright it was in Heaths eyes.

The Dark Father looked straight into Ash and struck that thought from him without a moments hesitation.

“Randal is not a Mavvar, no matter how hard he insists it so. We cannot see the truth of it in him, but we can see where the lie has been hidden and that is enough.” The Dark Father gently lifted Ash’s chin, looking straight into his eyes. In that moment of connection Ash felt the echo of a meeting some time ago in that very place. “I confronted him, and rather unfavourably it revealed what was hidden beneath just fort a moment. A weakness in the prison through which it might escape.”

“Why are you telling me this? What difference does it make.”

“Because you see it more than any other, reborn of old blood and sat at his right hand. You might change his fate, keep the beast sealed. You are a strange thing, so full of potential with no guide to show you it. Orphaned by one old enough they should have known better than to remake you so carelessly. We still don’t know who that might be, and not for lack of searching above and below.”

“Please.” Heath took both his hands, clasping them tightly. “Just trust me. The Golgotha have the right of it, of everything. They just want us to be free, and I know that's what you want deep down.”

Ash looked into those bright green eyes and knew he had to crush that brilliant hope that shone from them. He pulled from his grasp, looking away as he took a breath to buy himself a moment.

“I can’t. Randal may or may not be what he says he is, but he is still Randal. There is good in him, even if he rejects it sometimes. My fate, my choice.” Ash spoke with certainty he certainly did not feel. There was not even a little belief in his conviction from the others, but they respected the decision as much as they disagreed with it.

“I am sorry to hear that, I thought better of you.” The Dark Father paused as if weighing the outcomes of his next words. “You are free to leave, and I will instruct my children to not treat you as an enemy, merely as a neutral party for as long as you act the same. You are still Golgotha, even wearing a traitors flag. While I cannot account for the Mavvar and Iscari, I can promise our own only engage when ordered to, ignoring those who are foolish enough to listen to the poisonous words of...”

He continued with what was likely a dire warning and mild condemnation from his expression, but it was entirely lost on Ash. As he spoke rose petals fell from his mouth, words muffled entirely. Ash should have been greatly concerned, only realising much, much later just how strange his certainty it was fine to be ignored had been.

“...I strongly suggest you show due care with them lest you fall under their influence. I know they have taken some passing interest in you.”

The dark folded about him, the last Ash saw of Heath was some of that old sadness rise to the surface only to be swallowed by something so much more dangerous and determined.

Now alone he left the graveyard, the journey back to the hotel would be long enough to give him time to consider what his next move ought to be.

He thought for a moment he heard a breath, the sort that proceeded a question, turning to find a nothing that might have been Zhang shaped.


	13. The Dreams

“I cannot say that went well.”

Ash startled at the voice, one hand going to the bedside light and the other under his pillow for a weapon. Both proved disappointing, Ash throwing himself upright expecting to have to fight a tangle of bedsheets to get to his assailant and finding those gone too along with the rest of the hotel room. He should have been at least mildly alarmed that he was now dressed, finding himself on a rooftop with the moon hung bright in the sky.

“Markus?” He blinked a few times, his eyes perfectly adjusted but some mortal remnant telling him it was the correct course of action after startling awake.

At the edge of the roof there he stood, silhouetted against the moon in a way that was likely perfectly framed and staged just for that moment. Exile had done nothing to cool his flair for the overdramatic, hair and coat caught just the right amount by the wind.

He was leaning forward over the waist high wall just a little as if deeply interested with what was below, taking his time before acknowledging Ash’s presence.

“Who else has these refined cheekbones?” He turned away from the edge, leaning against the wall and falling into a relaxed slouch as he let his sunglasses slip just a little down his nose.

In that moment he seemed different, unguarded somehow. There was an uncertainty to him, there one moment and gone the next like the rise and fall of the tides, one that Ash would have compared to Heath if not for how badly Markus might take the comparison.

“You are never so vain, what's changed?” Ash approached cautiously, casting out his insight and getting a confused answer. He could sense absolutely nothing, almost as if he was reborn of the blood of fire or light rather than dark, but it was a nothing that was distinctly Golgotha in its absence when he knew how to look for it.

The world was that strained kind of colourless that had become a little too familiar, the only bright mark upon it was the rose sat in Markus’ lapel.

“Vanity is a thing of the day, and it is I do believe early afternoon.” Markus motioned up to the night sky as if it was entirely obvious that it was day.

Ash looked up at the moon rather pointedly, frowning as he gained another small insight as to what others had to deal with when Gols were about, the moon terribly full on the wrong night of the month and so large it almost swallowed the sky.

“Is it?”

“It is.” Markus nodded most assuredly, certainty almost as absolute as it was plain to see.

He hopped up onto the lip of the roof in a single, quick movement, flanked by the bars of a ladder curling over the edge. He reached up to touch his throat, wiping some invisible stain and flicking it away before simply taking a backward step off.

It was Ash that struck the ground, suddenly sitting. They were in Saturnalia on a crowded Saturday night, Heath behind the bar watching him as if Ash was not supposed to be there before shrugging and returning to his work.

“Is this real?” Ash had already dug his nails into his palms, gouging two bloody marks there that felt like they almost hurt. It was almost a confirmation, though brought no comfort.

“Of course it is.” Markus gestured airily but with less of his usual careful energy, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.

“No. This is a dream.” Ash pushed out with his will, carving a little niche of the place out that was his. With an effort of thought he summoned something, straining against whatever was maintaining the place.

“That doesn't make it not real. Just a different kind of real. If this place shows a truer true than the waking world can it truly be called a dream?” Markus looked at the badly formed image Ash had made, extending a little help to shepherd it through. “Ah, tea. Thank you.”

Markus took the glass pot, pouring himself a generous amount into a china cup painted with pink roses. He took a noisy sip, then another greedy one, taking his time even with the pointed looks he was getting from Ash.

“Your taste in tea is delightful, I must complement you on that.”

“Thank you, care to tell me why I’m here?” Ash glanced around the room, noticing a single distinct error that held a little dread to it. There was no exit.

“I believe that is the domain of religion and philosophy. I would offer you a parable in these trying times, but I think you’ve possibly found a new god to worship who’s stories are of war and family. Shall we start from the beginning, like all good parables do?” he took off his sunglasses and laid them down, taking a breath and sitting up straight. “I cannot say that went well.”

“What didn't?” Ash chose to humour him, but found himself somewhat relaxing. In recent nights he had been lacking friends within the Coven, some comfortable familiarity not entirely unappreciated.

“Saorise.”

“You know about that?” He had returned to the hotel in a taxi to find guards flanking the door with orders for him to go straight to her meeting room. She was understandably furious in that sharp edged and all too quietly spoken way, first at Heaths betrayal, then at Ash being fool enough to fall into such a simple trap and more so making no effort to actually escape it.

“I felt that. I fear my sabbatical is nearly over.” Officially Markus had retreated to his shop to spend some time in contemplation of his mistakes, unofficially it was exile known to all and only spoken where it could not get back to the Regent. Saorise had in recent nights loosened the story, softening its edges likely in preparation to pull him back in should his talents be needed. “As are many things, endings do seem to be the theme of this season. I think its time for us to have a long postponed talk.”

“More sagely advice? Make friends and trust no one has lead me to some mixed results so far.” Ash let a half laugh free, entirely forced.

“You look for answers, as we all do. We’re all hypocrites, seeking our own truth when all we really want is to be told what that truth is. It could be a church, a newscaster in a pretty tie, from family, from friends, or from a regent, a father, or a prince. That is entirely your choice. But if you can understand, if you can see for yourself you can be anything.” Markus in that moment seemed dazzling and bright, the scent of rose oil almost overwhelming before fading to nothing. “I thought to make you an offer, to ask something of you. That was never going to be for you though, you dance to much different music.”

“What would I have been offered?” Ash heard the music louder, quieter in this half there place but not gone. Never gone.

“A secret, a path, a chance to do the right you crave. But it isn't the right for you, no matter the necessity.” Markus reached across the table and plucked a rose from Ash’s lapel, one he had not even known had been there. “Do as you must, as you need to, and know that I do the same. Where one ends the other begins, my purpose and yours.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“You don't have to.” Markus looked rather pointedly at Ash’s hands. “Martyr isn't a good look for you, I suggest you have that tended to. I believe they have a first aid box behind the bar.”

Ash stood, staring at his bleeding palms the whole walk to the bar. They should have healed.

“What can I get you?” Heath was staring off somewhere else, only really half paying attention.

“Should you be here, I think this is a Gol space?” Ash thought for a long moment, watching as Heath’s image seemed to flicker between brightly lit and deeply shadowed like a wind swept candle casting light through stained glass. “Are you even real?”

“This is Hollywood, nothing is real. The trick is to find the acts you like and pretend, takes the edge off of it all.” Heath smiled, the softness of it so strange to see without nearly all of that sadness behind his eyes. Instead he seemed content, but not quite enough that it washed away everything weighing upon him. It could not be ignored that there was a light there now behind the dazzling green, its meaning obscured despite being so terribly close.

Heath brought the decanter he had been cleaning up to from under the bar and held it for Ash to see.

It was familiar, something of it telling him he ought to know what it was and what it meant. Instead he only recognised it as one of many Saturnalia had.

Heath let it fall from one hand to the other, playfully careless for how much he would have flinched at the sound of something breaking in earlier nights.

He let it roll off the tip of his fingers with a limp flourish, where it should have shattered on the ground instead Saturnalia shattered around it.

At the other side of the bar sat another Ash. Heath was next to him, a conversation about nothing much important other than its company passing between them. There was another out on the floor, this time Heath flitting about with a camera. Another behind the bar of Ash mixing cocktails in a spare apron having been deputised when the second shift bartender failed to show up. The more he looked the more he saw, each one a little memory and within was a candle mote of warmth.

In the corner was one better left forgotten, haunting the karaoke machine. Heath had bought it on an impulse despite his usual clientèle being the dour life draining type. Saorise wasn’t particularly happy at the expense but did little other than frown about it. Saturnalia was supposed to be laundering money for Coven use, not squandering it on frivolities.

What little musical talent Ash had possessed, if any, had apparently died with him. He had discovered this the worst possible way. He couldn’t even blame his undeath when Heath still sang like quicksilver despite apparently being out of practice.

A Mavvar had been present that night, or possibly within a mile or so and had been drawn in by what could have been mistaken for a wounded animal gnawing its leg from a snare. From the lips of a spy to the ear of the Vandal Prince passed the knowledge of what had transpired, and from Randal came mockery followed by another night and another trip into the mortal world best forgotten for no other reason than the vain hope Ash might retain some dignity.

Mavvar were apex predators, creatures of the night feared in the darkest corners of history, and forever more would Ash only see Randal and his inner circle singing Abba so off key it almost hurt. The karaoke place they’d picked had been nice at least, Japanese owned and not entirely gaudy in its eastern theme, even if the drinks menu was lacking for those of certain needs. The poor plants, if they weren’t as plastic as Ash had suspected, had been fed a steady diet of marked up dollar store sake sacrificed to keep their cover up.

“May I?” Heath motioned toward Ash hands with a look of concern, laying his own open upon the bar top to take them.

Ash offered his, the two bloody gouges in his palms bleeding slow and thick.

Heath took a cloth and rinsed it in the small sink under the bar, gently tending to the wound. It only took a short moment to clean, the cloth dropped out of sight as Heath swiped his thumb over his lip staining it red with a stray drop.

From the first aid kit he took four cloth plasters, making crosses across his palm.

“Thank you, but I don't think I needed it.” Ash looked at them, flexing his fingers to see if it was adhered properly.

“Its not you who needs it, but at least now you match.” Heath looked at him with a strange sort of longing. “You care about him, but I think you don’t understand him. I envy having a mystery like that, one that might have love beneath its secrets.”

“There are other kinds of love.”

“Don’t say you love me as a brother, if I wanted cliché I’d go rent myself something romantic. I just might go do that anyway, if you can find me we could finally have that movie night we keep letting slip.”

“I think that might be nice.”

“And I think you have a guest.” Heath looked over Ash’s shoulder, expression oddly sharp and grim.

Ash turned to face them and Saturnalia fell away to blinding white light and a sound like the static of an old TV.

This new half place pricked at his skin like the cold of a winters morning.

“ _Why am I here_?” Ash knew that voice, and worse knew the echo to it like it spoke with too many mouths. “ _You! You did this_?”

“Its lovely to meet you again.” Ash nodded politely in greeting, wondering if he could even see him. To him he was only a silhouette against the white so long as he ignored that something like heat haze shimmered just behind him in the shape of that grotesque mass he had glanced in the dark below. “Its terribly bright in here.”

“I’d offer my sunglasses but I left them in another dream.” Markus was behind him, and Ash felt sure he had been the entire time. “It seems there is still a thread binding you.”

“ _I don't appreciate being being forced to relive this failure all over again_.” He was looking somewhere else, seeing something wholly different.

Ash looked through him and saw something not quite expected. In splashes of image stained colourful with rage and bitterness he saw the night of his remaking from another angle. The Abattoir seemed so strange, the lights dulled and the people blurry in a way that made them seem wholly less. Before he could be drawn into it and truly see it for himself there was a shock and pain, the connection snapping shut with a snarl carried from many mouths. Ash recoiling from the hammer blow pain piercing his skull.

“ _Get out_!”

Ash sat up in his bed, a stinging pain still lingering. Above him was the frowning face of Saorise’s right hand man. A glance to the clock showed a set of red digital number direly late into the night.

“Would you care to explain?” The agent took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to a somewhat puzzled Ash.

“Would you believe Markus had a hand in this?” It took a moment to realise, the smell sharp and offensive as blood poured freely from his nose.

The Agent made a rather sour face that suggested that he could entirely believe it, and was not looking forward to explaining why it took almost two and a half hours to grab an agent from the other side of the building.

It mattered not in the end, it had passed them all by with a phone call declaring a false alarm on the task Ash was to attend to. This was perfectly fine as Ash had his own plans to attend to. He had a meeting with a certain Mavvar he had been waiting several nights for.


End file.
